I need to do some things in RL for now, but on the CIA torture tapes destroyed by a no doubt overzealous and in any case long-gone Porter Goss, and concealed from the courts and the 9/11 commission, go read Glenn (as usual).
The country has stood by while one incident after the next of deliberate lawbreaking and cover-up at the highest levels of our government has been revealed. It is just axiomatic that when high government officials can break the law with impunity, the country no longer lives under the rule of law. That has been the United States for the last six years.
A key ingredient in that pattern has been the ineptitude and outright consent of the leading Congressional Democrats on the Intelligence Committees, particularly Jay Rockefeller. Lawbreaking of this sort will stop only once those with the ability to do so decide to impose real consequences and accountability for it. Until that happens, it will continue. Why wouldn't it?
Maybe the Dems hope to win in 2008 without coming clean. I doubt they'll be able to, and if they do, they won't have the mandate they hope for.
NOTE Oh, sure the tapes were destroyed. For one thing, whoever handled the "destruction" surely kept copies for protection and/or blackmail; wouldn't you? And the whole system must have been backed up, too; why, oh why, are sysadmins never subpoenaed?
Frankly, I read this as complicity between Mukasey, Admiral McConnell and the Dem [cough] "leadership" to bury the whole thing.
The real message is: "Yeah, you can mau-mau us on these two. We've still got the rest, and those are the ones you're implicated in. So write some Sternly Worded Letters, we'll throw some weak sisters to the wolves, and punt on the rest 'til 2008, and maybe not even then."
It's just a modified, limited hangout.
Not that I'm cynical.
NOTE This is not a "no difference" post. There is a difference between the abuser (Bush) and his enablers (some Dems, especially Harman, Rockefeller, and the Blue Dogs).
UPDATE Read Balkin here and and here , too. Everybody who cares about that silly rule of law thing is going nuts on this:
They chose to destroy anyway, after what must have been a lot of internal debate. Which goes to show that . . . the cover-up is not worse than the crime, and they knew it. Those tapes must have depicted pretty gruesome evidence of serious criminal conduct. Conduct that would be proof positive of serious breaches of at least two treaties. Conduct approved and implemented at the highest levels of government.
And this would be a surprise, why?
I'd really been looking forward to living under a legitimate government again, with a Democratic victory in 2008. With Democrats like Harman and Rockefeller (and don't get me started on DiFi), I'm thinking I need to scale my expectations back a bit.
UPDATE Big Media Matt has the right idea. Jay and Jane: "Start Snitchin'!
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The Menace of Pictures in a Culture that Has no Imagination
For some reason, it's the pictures that make all the difference. We can hear about it, they can even tell us about it, but they're not in trouble until someone might actually see it.
And I'm sure you're right about this:
Oh, sure the tapes were destroyed. For one thing, whoever handled the “destruction” surely kept copies for protection and/or blackmail; wouldn’t you? And the whole system must have been backed up, too; why, oh why, are sysadmins never subpoenaed?
Frankly, I read this as complicity between Mukasey, Admiral McConnell and the Dem [cough] “leadership” to bury the whole thing.
The actual message that is being sent is that we're not going to see the tapes, even if we ask for them and even if we can identify who had them last. They're still stored somewhere, but the answer to every inquiry under the battered, limping rule of law is: "We destroyed them. So sue us. You ain't gonna see them."