The Art of Secrecy

During the first nine months of the Bush administration, nothing happened, because the new president had been elected to dismantle our confidence in the federal government. Remember he was vacationing, once again, when the ominous memo arrived warning Bush that Al Qaeda was planning to attack the country, and he was reading a book about a goat to school children when they did.

Suddenly the architect of do-nothing government and his evil mentor, Dick Cheney, panicked and abandoning the procedures and structures of constitutional government, in part to cover up their inaction (despite Richard Clarke, counter-terrorism aide in the White House and Bill Clinton's exit interview), came up with programs that attacked the very heart of American ideals: detention and torture of suspects both in the United States and abroad; extraordinary rendition, kidnapping foreign nationals to secret prisons where either contractors or "friendly" government agents beat, tortured, and often killed suspects; wiretapped American citizens who made telephone calls to Muslim countries to speak with family members, business associates, and friends; wiretapped attorneys and journalists, and perhaps members of Congress; and then denied it all.

The last gasp of American journalism, more likely because some real Americans with access to information leaked it to the New York Times and the Washington Post (as Daniel Ellsberg did with the Pentagon Papers), made us aware of these programs quite early in the Bush administration, early enough to have prevented Bush's re election. However, the scary tone frightened too many Americans into keeping with the guys who had failed to protect us in the first place and who were ransacking America in its aftermath.

This is more than incompetence. This was ideological warfare against the very traditions of American government and idealism, and it made money for the principals, too. Don't get me wrong: I've spent my career as an attorney and have no illusions about how government operates, no matter which party is in charge, and the egregious disregard for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, along with the Geneva Conventions, during prior administrations. But this was different, very different, because there were attempts to justify their actions, just as the Nazi's did, with trumped up legal opinions, deceitful briefings to members of Congress, and the United Nations, and there is much more that we don't know. And they profited from their actions: Rumsfeld and Cheney got richer while in office.

The New York Times presents a story today about just how ineffective all of this wiretapping really was.

And talkingpointsmemo.com reports that the extent of the secret surveillance is still unknown and goes way beyond our wildest expectations. The Inspector General's report alludes to stuff that makes my civil libertarian heart quake.

This is why we need a full investigation and prosecutions, if appropriate, of Bush officials who intentionally refused to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States. Remember that oath of office that Chief Justice Roberts blew during Obama's inauguration, well, it means something.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.