Section 9

Oh, and by the way, you can see just how far back some of this shit goes. Some of Marty's stuff goes back to the Dawn of Bushism, while my stuff goes back to the beginning of the Arnold Era in California.

I dropped blogging for three years, at least.

Now that the Republican Party is a respectable Opposition Party again, I , at least get to have all sorts of good clean fun. Meantime, it appears that Show Trials are in the offing over Bush Administration waterboarding of people like Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and other charm school graduates. My opinion: a critical mistake by Obama that will lead to increased Republican cohesion and a greater inability to get his agenda enacted. David Frum echoes my long term concerns in his
post of today at New Majority.

Important takeaway from Frum:

Until now, however, this revenge cycle has had one limit: It ends when the administration under attack ends. The Clinton administration did not prosecute Reagan and Bush officials; the Bush administration did not act against Clinton officials.

Now Obama is musing about extending the political reach of the criminal law. If he does so, he will find he has opened a new front of political warfare that will not soon end.

After the 9/11 attacks, President Bush drew a curtain of oblivion against all the errors and mistakes that had led up to the attacks. There was accusation and counter-accusation in the media, but at the official level there was no recrimination against President Clinton’s decision not to kill bin Laden when he had the chance, no action against those who had failed to stop the 9/11 hijackers from entering the country.

If Obama proceeds to take legal action against those who did what they thought was right to defend the country, all that will change. Prosecutions launched by Obama will not stop when Obama declares “game over.” If overzealousness under Bush becomes a crime under Obama, underzealousness under Obama will become a crime under the next Republican president.

Revenge will be exacted for revenge, the costs of government service will escalate, mobilizing cross-party support will become practically impossible for any important action, and the political life of the American republic will take another step toward the play-for-keeps destructiveness of the last days of the Roman republic.

My belief is that Obama and the Democrats are at the zenith of their power. This is when men of power commonly make their great mistakes. My suspicion is that a campaign of political prosecutions against Republican officials will not only poison the atmosphere in Washington, but lead to Republican coherence that would not have occurred otherwise.

This move on the part of Obama is a huge mistake, and will come back to haunt him. Voters want both parties to work together to solve their problems. Obama is giving away what made him special, his post-partisan veneer. This is a gift to Republicans that the President did not have to offer, but once given, cannot be returned.

Frum's comparison to the Late Republic is haunting but quite apt, apparently.