Published: July 12, 2009 05:40 pm      

DICK: Experiment needs some thought

Following the law should make it easier to track the bad guys

It’s amazing the lengths conservatives will go to defend the right-wing status quo.

A good example was a Wall Street Journal editorial on June 24.

Regular readers of WSJ editorials know that the newspaper is nothing more than a cheerleader of the more rapacious mantras of the right-wing.

In this one, the Journal invited us into a political thought experiment. This is something that would never happen, but it might make conservatism look good. The Journal has been gnashing its teeth for some time over the prospect of investigating and prosecuting those who supported the torture policy of the Bush administration.

Here’s the thought experiment: If the U.S. is attacked by terrorists under President Obama’s watch, can the government be sued by families of the victims for having been advised in legal memos that Guantanamo be closed and that interrogations of al-Qaida detainees be limited?

Should those officials be liable for advice they gave to Obama, WSJ asks?

That depends. Does the advice run counter to U.S. law as it did in the case of former Bush counsel John Yoo who, in so many words, advised that the president was the supreme decision maker and U.S. laws, military laws and the Geneva Conventions didn’t apply?

The Journal implies that if Obama doesn’t break the law after another attack (and ask any conservative — another attack is imminent), then he can be sued for following the law.

If that seems like absurdly twisted logic, it is. Conservatives are spinning all varieties of nonsense to protect their heroes like Yoo and his ex-cohort at Bush’s Justice Department, Jay Bybee. Yoo teaches law at Berkeley and Bybee sits on the federal bench. How can a country that prides itself on being a nation of laws tolerate Yoo and Bybee — who actively encouraged breaking the law — working within the law?

Admittedly, they gave Bush just what he wanted: carte blanche to treat the world as his oyster no matter what the law said.

Of course, the Journal thinks this is just liberal revenge against Yoo and Bybee and wrote, “their aim is to ruin and bankrupt individuals in the Bush administration who played key roles in the war on terror.” If the shoe was on the other foot, and conservatives were going after liberals, the Journal and its ilk would call it justice.

The Bush advisers “were only doing what their superiors and the CIA asked of them,” OK, but that’s not an argument we bought with the Germans and Japanese, and we shouldn’t buy it now. The Journal said the pair acted in good faith, but we know that’s not true.

They acted to increase the power of the executive branch. That was their goal.

If Obama’s advisers follow the law, they can still accomplish keeping America safe while tracking down the bad guys. In fact, if the law is followed, it will be easier to bring wrongdoers to justice because there will be plenty of help from nations who considered us, during the Bush years, more dangerous than the terrorists, thanks to the likes of Yoo and Bybee.

• Stephen Dick writes for The Herald Bulletin in Anderson. He can be reached at steve.dick@heraldbulletin.com.