Accountability

The rule of law, the bedrock of American democracy, requires accountability. Yet in this fog of incompetence known as the Bush Administration, there has been none. Bush administration officials refuse to respond to Congressional subpoenas, refuse to testify, and just last week, finally, Cheney was ordered by a district court judge to preserve all of his documents, including the embarrassing ones about his energy cabal and his strategies with Congress. That case, of course, will be headed for the Supreme Court.

No accountability for the attacks on September 11, 2001, despite the 911 Commission and the Senate Report on pre-911 intelligence failures.

No accountability for the lies that led the United States to invade Iraq: even with the Senate Intelligence Committee Report, Part I and Part II.

No accountability for the failure to act when thousands of Americans were stranded during and through the long wake of Hurricane Katrina, a long wake that continues to this very day.

No accountability for approaching the telecommunications industry without warrants and without authority to set up elaborate spying networks of Americans and citizens of the world.

No accountability for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel rationalizing the use of torture and making up phony legal analysis to rid this administration of the pesky rules of international war, the ones we wrote, called the Geneva Conventions, et al.

No accountability for the Justice Department's use of religious and political litmus tests, which decimated the professionalism of the Justice Department, including the Honors Program and the Voting Rights Section.

No accountability for the massive failure of the financial markets, every day losing millions of ordinary people's savings and retirement funds, pushing families into foreclosure and homelessness, and creating a world-wide financial crisis.

Today, finally, a little accountability. Mukasey has just announced that he is appointing a special prosecutor to look into the firings of the nine US attorneys, firings that were prompted solely because these professional men and women refused to take the Bush loyalty test.

The way America used to spread democracy was through our system of laws not through pre emptive attacks. Look around the world and see how many post-colonial constitutions are based on ours. Yet the impact of American aspirational law is dwindling. Fewer foreign courts rely on US Supreme Court analysis to justify their decisions.

These days, foreign courts in developed democracies often cite the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights in cases concerning equality, liberty and prohibitions against cruel treatment, said Harold Hongju Koh, the dean of the Yale Law School. In those areas, Dean Koh said, “they tend not to look to the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court.”

In the time it took for me to draft this post, the New York Stock market's Dow Jones Industrial Average just sunk over 100 points. Now another 10 while editing. Still going down after I updated the posting to reflect the appointment of a special prosecutor!