People Got The Power

Digby called attention to this stunning excerpt from Jane Mayer's new book, where she reveals that DoJ lawyers (and from context, this could be Jim Comey and Jack Goldsmith, two extremely high-level officials) were speaking in codes because they suspected their government was wiretapping them to determine their motives. It's really only the latest in a long, long series of outrages, and it's not even the most amazing one of the week:

As long as CIA agents could convince themselves they were not deliberately inflicting severe pain or suffering on detainees, they were free to do virtually anything in their questioning of suspected terrorists, including waterboarding. Furthermore, the agents' belief they weren't in fact torturing their captives didn't even need to be "reasonable."

These are the implications of a controversial August 2002 memo from the Justice Department to the CIA that was released Thursday. The American Civil Liberties Union obtained several internal Bush administration documents it says authorizes the CIA to torture detainees.

We have faith-based initiatives, a faith-based economy, and now here is faith-based torture, a transparent attempt to shield interrogators and their minders at the highest levels from prosecution for war crimes.

And we all know that torture just scratches the surface, if that can be believed. Slate has now put together an interactive guide to all the lawbreaking. The very fact that you can make a rich media interactive guide is enough to make you vomit. While more and more information leaks out every day, there's certainly enough to make a credible case for just about any prosecution you can imagine. The question, of course, is: will there be any justice?

On Friday, the House Judiciary Committee held a not-impeachment hearing. They literally couldn't use certain words that would suggest the President or his staff lied, broke laws, or violated the public trust. Just informational and all that. It was very prim and proper, and while Democrats and Republicans and libertarians alike testified to the scope of the unconstitutional rogue Presidency under which we've all lived since January 2001, and allies like the ACLU praised the first step, let's be honest - in the accountability-free culture of Washington, holding a hearing that avoided the word "impeachment" or indeed any kind of responsibility for the actions outlined, is about as far as anyone wants to go.

If you're looking for accountability, it's highly unlikely that you'll get it from either potential incoming Administration. Cass Sunstein's interview on Democracy Now put an end to any hopes of that, rejecting prosecution for "non-egregious" crimes that would amount to the criminalization of politics. Anyway, the Military Commissions Act effectively nullified any opportunity for War Crimes Act prosecutions domestically. And since the conservative movement goes apeshit at just the hint of accusing these guys of what they've admitted to doing, there's little chance any Democrat will have the stomach for following through.

And yet, there are other intriguing possibilities. The very fact of this surfeit of lawbreaking has bred a new kind of Democrat, a reform-minded type who will run on - and possibly win on - accountability. If we had 20 Alan Graysons in Congress, you bet something would happen.

Alan Grayson: I'm Alan Grayson, and I'm the Democratic candidate for Congress in Florida's district eight. And I'm the attorney of record in every single case now pending in Federal court involving war profiteers in Iraq. These are cases in which I represent whistleblowers. The Florida civil rights association named me Humanitarian of the Year for my work in this regard, taxpayers against fraud named me lawyer of the year, and I've been featured in Vanity Fair magazine, in media like CBS evening news, 60 minutes, and even Dailykos, imagine that.
I'm running because I'm fed up with the government mismanagement, the Bush administration's shameless pandering to war profiteers. I think they set out on a deliberate course to make this war good for the people who were their friends. And I want to try to hold them accountable when I'm in Congress. When I'm in Congress... the Bush administration's worst nightmare is going to be me with subpoena power because I know everything that they've done, and I'm going to hold them accountable for it.

Matt Stoller: But wait wait, let me just interrupt you there, the Bush administration's gone in 2009.

Alan Grayson: Oh but all the people they set up as the new kings and queens of America are still around. What Eisenhower said, that we need to fear the military industrial compex, has become true because they have manufactured a five year war that they want to perpetuate for a generation or even a century so that they can keep lining the pockets of their friends, the war whores.

Matt Stoller: So, people are going to say, let bygones be bygones, or let's have some sort of truth and reconciliation commission, what do you think needs to happen?

Alan Grayson: We don't need truth and reconciliation, we need punishment. We need people to be held accountable for all the mistakes that they made that have screwed us up in this war and screwed us up in this economy. The economy is falling apart, the chickens are coming home to roost. You cannot spend $10,000 for every man, woman, and child in America for a war that never should have taken place in the first place.

Right on. Now how this manifests itself is unclear, but there is talk of a 21st-century Church Committee to relentlessly investigate and bring to light the worst abuses of the past eight years, and with someone like Grayson involved in it there's at least hope that the road leads to prosecution instead of admonishment.

But I prefer actions like this:

New Zealand students protesting the Iraq war offered a reward to anyone who carries out a citizen's arrest of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit to the country Friday.

The Auckland University Students' Association is seeking Rice's arrest for her role in "overseeing the illegal invasion and continued occupation" of Iraq, Association President David Do said. The group is offering a $3,700 reward.

And this:

Des Moines police arrested four people Friday who attempted a citizen's arrest of former White House adviser Karl Rove.

Rove was in Des Moines to speak at a fundraiser [...]

The four accused Rove of election fraud and conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States in the time before the Iraq war.

Now on the surface it appears that actions like this are futile, just a way for protesters to vent and make Administration officials' lives just a smidge less comfortable. But let's face it. Though a new Church Commission or a wave of reformers would be nice, the idea that Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Feith and Wolfowitz and Rice and Rove will get anything approaching their just consequences for what they have done is remote (though that's no reason not to keep pushing). However, there's a cumulative effect, I imagine, to the spectacle of people being arrested for trying to serve you with a summons everywhere you go for the rest of your life. I guess the Amish culture has shunning, and this is the opposite. I'm well aware that these people aren't well acquainted with the concept of shame. But the idea that forever more, they will have to run from one car to the next, have to use subterfuge to escape criminal prosecution abroad, can never walk down the street in comfort, and need to always look over your shoulder, is at least something. And one of these days, one of them will slip up. It's the equivalent of holding up a mirror, forcing these people to look at themselves for all their ugliness, forever. Aside from the psychological impact, it builds the movement for accountability. And it keeps the signature issues - torture, illegal spying, lying in service to endless war, extreme executive power - in the spotlight, so that the next set of conservatives won't be able to enter the White House so stealthily. The goal here is to prosecute, of course, but also to discredit, to nuclearize, to keep these actions out of the memory hole. We cannot do any less.