In a puff piece about how wonderful Attorney General Eric Holder is, the Washington Post noted his plans to begin investigations into the behavior of officials in the Bush administration:
Then came a bombshell three days ago that has sent Washington political circles reeling: Holder’s inclination to appoint a prosecutor to examine whether interrogators tortured terrorism suspects during the Bush years. . . .
Holder signaled he was leaning toward naming a prosecutor from inside the Justice Department to examine whether CIA interrogators crossed legal lines set out by Bush lawyers in their handling of terrorism suspects. The inquiry, if it proceeds as expected within a few weeks, is designed to be narrowly confined and would not conflict with messages from President Obama about following the facts and the law where they lead, according to a senior Justice Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is at a delicate stage.
The torture of suspects is an immoral thing to do—and usually a stupid thing to do, as well. But the timing of Holder’s moves has prompted some cynical responses: “a couple of weeks after Barack Obama’s strong approval/disapproval ratings took a turn to the unfavorable and Obamacare is looking less like a lead pipe cinch it is suddenly time to investigate the Bush administration.”
There’s good reason for such cynicism, but the real danger lies in the damage to the political foundation of a republic.
Say you have a system of government in which policy differences are criminalized—a political situation in which a change of administration allows the people who’ve lost power to be prosecuted. We have a name for what happens next: We call it a coup.
When losing power means losing your freedom or your life, you tend to grab power however you can. Cf. Ancient Rome.
July 14th, 2009 | 2:42 pm
How does Mr. Bottum know that it is Obama/Holder who are criminalizing politics, and not Bush/Cheney/Gonzales who acted criminally as politicians? I was unaware of his authority to rule on these matters. This line of criticism obviously begs the question about criminality that is (possibly) going to be asked. That there could be such a thing as criminalizing politics, and that that would be problematic, is surely correct. However, Bottum’s assumption that this is in fact going on says more about his political allegiances than it does about the question at hand. Moreover, the parting generalization about power-grabbing is passing strange for a Christian opinion-maker to be asserting. As a general anthropological claim, it’s about as devoid of christological consideration as one could possibly make.
July 14th, 2009 | 3:03 pm
Is Bottum serious? The passage he quotes is only about the possibility of prosecuting people who crossed the Bush administration’s legal lines – how would that be a way of “criminalizing policy differences”, especially since the people who wrote and obeyed the policies are – perhaps wrongly, given that those policies may well have violated international law – going to stay untouched? How in heaven would this be a “coup”? And who’s doing more damage to our republic’s political foundation: those who are trying to uphold the rule of law, or those who were involved in the torture and abuse of prisoners and detainees?
July 15th, 2009 | 4:29 pm
[...] #3: Joseph Bottum at First [...]
July 15th, 2009 | 7:50 pm
“Say you have a system of government in which policy differences are criminalized—a political situation in which a change of administration allows the people who’ve lost power to be prosecuted. We have a name for what happens next: We call it a coup. ”
What do you call a government in which powerful officials are not prosecuted for laws they have violated?
July 16th, 2009 | 4:51 am
Conceding that torture is permissible under certain conditions, which of the following would be the best justification?
Your prisoner is the only one who knows the date and time of an assassination attempt on the Pope
Your prisoner is the only one who knows where a nuclear device has been planted in Washington, D.C.
Your prisoner is the only one who knows where a vial of nerve gas has been placed in the London water supply system
Your prisoner has announced that the earth revolves around the sun
LOL
July 17th, 2009 | 5:26 pm
If the Bush team tortured (or authorized the torture of) detainees, it’s not just one of many “policy differences.” It’s not just a gravely immoral sin unworthy of defense by a once-strong defender of orthodoxy like First Things. It’s a crime. And isn’t that sort of the AG’s job? To investigate crimes? Even when it’s a company’s internal policy to cheat, or a former executive branch’s internal policy to violate US and international law by torturing?
Is anyone going to allege that torture is okay under US law? Even Clinton, when acknowledging that in a “ticking bomb” scenario, he’d torture a terrorist, followed it with an admission that he would face trial for his actions afterwards.
All that aside, I’m getting really tired of people on the Right putting politics before Faith. Do we really need to turn conservative Catholics into right-wing reflections of Charles Curran or Fr. Drinan, RIP? Because that’s a lot like what this “sure, it’s wrong, but it shouldn’t be punished by law!” drivel sounds like.
July 20th, 2009 | 8:44 am
Maybe this is pandering, Mr. Bottum, but as you pointed out yourself, “torture of suspects is an immoral thing to do”, and if the government doesn’t punish those who have done criminal acts, what good is it?
Sometime politicians do the right thing because they want to look good–this happens on the right as well as the left. I won’t ever get too misty-eyed over Obama, but if he does something good, I’ll acknowledge and welcome that. I’ll leave to God to sort out his and Mr. Holder’s real intentions.
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