Conservative

By John Fay

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There was once a politician who became president by focusing on a cleavage social issue that divided the American people. He led our nation into a long, bloody war that many thought was unprovoked, illegal and immoral. At home he used the war to justify taking away many civil liberties. Abroad he was seen as an ill-educated western bumpkin and America’s image during his presidency was notoriously bad. Even during the war itself he was accused of incompetence and failed to face reality. Indeed historians have a hard time thinking of any president who was more unpopular during his era than Abraham Lincoln.

President Obama is self-consciously trying to lay claim to the Lincoln legacy. However, if he is clever, he may begrudgingly admit that in many ways Lincoln has more in common with fellow Republican George W. Bush than he does with Obama. Bush left office with a 32 percent approval rating, so by any measure he was unpopular. Unpopularity, of course, is not a crime, which then begs the question of why exactly anyone would seriously contend that he or his administration should be subject to prosecution. The reality is most of those clamoring for such actions are not doing so because of any specific Bush policies. People were already calling Bush the worst president in history in 2001, before anyone had heard of Guantanamo Bay, the Patriot Act or other supposed “crimes.”

Bush stands for democracy. A democracy is a society where people of different opinions get together to politely discuss their differences in a mature manner. Calling for Bush’s prosecution is evidence that many of the former president’s critics no longer believe someone has the right to respectfully disagree with them. To their way of thinking, the very fact that Bush worshipped openly, opposed abortion and gay marriage and embraced a more aggressive military policy meant that he had to be evil. His real crime, in short, was a crime of thought. As president of the United States, Bush dared to think differently — an unforgiveable act. Now his opponents are out for revenge.

President Obama has not hesitated to be a vocal critic of the Bush administration for the past two years, so for that reason people here might be misled into thinking that he is likely to prosecute Bush for his “crimes.” In reality, however, Obama will prove too smart for that. He knows, as the examples of both Lincoln and Bush demonstrate, that popularity is a very fleeting thing. He knows that when he leaves office he may very well be just as unpopular as Bush is now and that his political opponents will take advantage of any precedent he set by prosecuting Bush to justify prosecuting him.

Obama is particularly vulnerable to a loss of popularity, since as president he will need to make decisions rather than issue platitudes. When he does, the American people will discover the vast difference between his lofty rhetoric and his less idealistic policies. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

Reach columnist John Fay at opinion@dailyuw.com.

Liberal

By Greg Ryan

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Torture committed by the previous administration was illegal and those responsible must pay the price. Obama is backing away from the issue, but there is hope yet.

Amid all the pomp and optimism of the inauguration there is a steadily growing anxiety among all Americans who value the continuity of our government under the rule of law.

These same Americans have been overcome with pride in their country and a renewed belief in the efficacy of the democratic system.

The president’s executive orders to close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay within a year, to halt all terrorism trials pending review and to stop all torture by U.S. personnel have renewed our collective sense of justice.

Closing Guantanamo and not torturing anyone else from this point forward represents an important and profound change for the better, but this can’t really be described as justice.

Serving justice requires that those who committed injustices — and broke U.S. law — be punished. It is now apparent that Obama’s campaign promise to “look forward and not backward” may have been sincere. Covering up or ignoring war crimes is neither bipartisan nor civil.

Eric Holder, the incoming attorney general, has gone out of his way to make clear to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he will fiercely prosecute any crimes surrounding terrorism charges, but has given no mention of prosecuting equally heinous American war crimes.

The day after the inauguration, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee put a one-week hold on Holder’s confirmation because they want him to promise not to prosecute past torture. If the rule of law is to continue on this continent then those who defied it must be brought to justice.

Obama is clearly worried about the political and cultural nightmare of prosecuting Bush administration officials. This explains his resistance to crusade on the issue. It does not, thankfully, preclude investigations taking place.

After all, Obama was a constitutional law professor and is an American citizen. He must feel in his gut the assault to our way of life. He’s also a smart politician. He knows how to get results in Washington. He knows that if his justice department were to prosecute any previous administration officials it would have to do so with bipartisan credibility.

If it appears Obama and Holder are chomping at the bit to throw Donald Rumsfeld in jail from day one, they will inevitably fail.

But if more and more whistleblowers slowly come out of the woodwork — like the post-Inauguration revelations from former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice — and if more and more damning testimony is painstakingly gathered on the record in low-level investigations and plea deals, they may be forced to act.

Then and only then can the desired crescendo of justice be achieved. So the left must keep up the fight and not let up on the indignation at these perversions of justice until they are remedied. We should likewise not give up hope on Obama’s sense of justice or the strength of our democracy to triumph over even our own evils.

Reach columnist Greg Ryan at opinion@dailyuw.com.

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