Andrew Sullivan Gets it Right - Except for Being Completely Wrong

Andrew Sullivan's Letter to George Bush is easily the best and most powerful case, both in terms of factual thoroughness and moral clarity, anyone has laid out against the stain and atrocity that was the War Crimes of the Bush Administration. Anyone tossing out propanda-fueled opinions about "non-uniformed enemies" and "9-11 changed everything" should be required to read every word of Sullivan's remarkable letter.

I say all this while not agreeing with Sullivan's overall thesis: that Bush just apologize, the country enjoys a bit of a moral colon cleanse and then we "move forward" while the machinations of our criminal justice system never swing into action. Sullivan's bottom line can be best summed up with this passage:

President Obama’s decision thus far to avoid such prosecutions is a pragmatic and bipartisan one in a time of war, as is your principled refusal to criticize him publicly in his first months. But moving on without actually confronting or addressing the very grave evidence of systematic abuse and torture under your administration poses profound future dangers. It gives the impression that nothing immoral or illegal took place.

What a bunch of total fucking bullshit-oozing nonsense.

"Pragmatism" and "Bipartisanship" are words devoid of any real meaning, and are being applied here, just as they often are by Bush's apologists, to completely whitewash Obama's - essentially - after-the-fact complicity in the same crimes Sullivan goes on to eloquently denounce.

Granted, Sullivan is writing a letter to the former President, so he's going to playdown Obama's mistakes for persuasive effect. He's also made clear in countless blogposts over the last year that he's whole-hartedly in favor of prosecutions, and generally disgusted with Obama's cowardice on his issue. So, I can grant him some leeway as a guy who is grasping for anything, any scenario whereby someone stands up and says what happened, what we did as a nation, was a disgusting crime.

But, one could easily write a letter to Obama using almost all of the same facts and arguments: the torture was systematic, bruatal and atrocious, blatantly illegal, immoral, rejected by the entire civilized world for decades, and that President's job is not to be "pragmatic" and "bipartisan" but to uphold the Constitution, and thereby the rule of law. Sullivan could have lavishly quoted Obama's statements about the importance of the rule of law, accountability and transparency. He could make an argument that "Looking Forward and Not Backwards" is an Orwellian euphamism, on par with "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", used to cover up a descent into lawlessness with the stablishment of this awful precedent Obama has set.

In the end, Sullivan is rather plainly calling on a courageous act, an admission of criminal guilt, from a man who could generously be referred to as "Captain Fuck-Up" for all of eternity, and yet couldn't even admit to any wrongdoing other than trading a very good baseball player!! Meanwhile, he deflects all blame (with the understandings noted above) from a man he regards as morally decent, and, more importantly, a man who is obligated by the same laws and lofty ideals, to which Sullivan is appealling, to actually step in and do something.

Crimes will happen. People with power will abuse that power. We're not defined as a country by how often or whether or not that happens, but by how we respond. If we're left to hoping the criminals (murderers, in this case) come forward and admit to their wrongs, then we are truly and utterly fucked.