Political Glance
Even though he has yet to complete his investigation, a federal prosecutor has already signaled that he is unlikely to indict any CIA employees for incinerating 92 secret interrogation tapes that purportedly show suspects being waterboarded.
Lost in the flood of reports about the CIA admitting the destruction of 92 interrogation tapes in a government legal filing were new and potentially devastating details. Sources close to an ongoing probe told The Washington Post that they expect no one at the CIA will be charged.
TVNL Comment: What are the people of this nation supposed to do with a government that is so corrupt that there is nobody left to prosecute the criminals? Americans may not have to the legal right to start a revolution, but it is clear that at this point if they want to preserve what is left of their liberty, they have an obligation to do so.
As president, Bush was often dubbed "Incurious George" by his critics. In 2004, the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin noted that "while Bush is indeed assertive, he also often lacks curiosity and patience and has little interest in details." In 2005, the Associated Press reported that "Bush didn’t ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29." Even Bob Woodward's State of Denial, published in 2006, described Bush as "intellectually incurious."
In a recent article in The National Interest and a public appearance at the Nixon Center, Perle has tried to sell the story that neither he nor his fellow neoconservatives had any significant influence on the foreign policy of the Bush administration, and especially the decision to invade Iraq. Specifically, he denounces the supposedly "false claim that the decision to remove Saddam, and Bush policies generally, were made or significantly influenced by a few neoconservative 'ideologues.'" He suggests that no one has ever documented this claim, either conveniently ignoring the many books and articles that did exactly that, or misrepresenting what these works actually say.
Remember that story Bobby Jindal told in his big speech Tuesday night -- about how during Katrina, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a local sheriff who was battling government red tape to try to rescue stranded victims?
Only in America can elected officials go on TV and confess to felonies (including torture and warrantless spying, not to mention aggressive war) and the resulting debate focus around the question of whether investigating the "possibility" of wrong-doing would be too radical. This week a coalition of dozens of human rights groups including the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Society of American Law Teachers released a statement, as drafted by The Robert Jackson Steering Committee, cutting to the chase.
