CRIME AND PUNISHMENT... AND TORTURE

I took the votes in the House and Senate to give George Bush the right to suspend habeus corpus and the legal ability to torture people-- any people-- to be absolutely beyond the pale. Within minutes of the revolting vote, I had determined that Sherrod Brown, an otherwise exemplary progressive running against a hideous rubber stamp reactionary, must be removed from the Blue America ActBlue page. And it helped me decide to urge friends and readers in Tennessee to not vote for Harold Ford, although, unlike Brown, voting for this kind of legislation is consistent with Ford's opportunism and utter lack of principles. Not very many Democrats joined with the Bush rubber stampers to support this most dangerous of any legislation to come out of this ill-starred Congress. In a perfect world Democrats who did join the Republicans on this should join the Republicans in a swift and decisive end to their political careers. The world's imperfect. Give Brown (another) pass.

Those who voted for it said that torture would be used only when the country was in the gravest of danger and when there was "no choice." Is that so? Well, what danger could be graver than the destruction of our basic democracy? I can't think of a worse crime committed in my lifetime-- in terms of the most horrific of consequences-- than... no, not 9/11, as brutal and horrible as that was... than the theft of the 2000 and 2004 elections. The installation of George Bush and his contemptible regime is certainly the worst thing that has happened to America since Pearl Harbor; some would argue since the Civil War.

I think it is imperative to get to the bottom of this grievous crime. Katherine Harris, Karl Rove, James Baker, Ken Blackwell should all be questioned. And they should be questioned politely... at first. If they're not willing to tell the truth, the questioning needs to get firmer-- as firm as the law permits, until the law is repealed.


Bribery, even when foreign interests are involved, don't rise to the same level, but it's still very serious. Cunningham was sent to prison for taking a couple million dollars from a few defense contractors and buying some rugs and commodes. Disgracefully, we are forced, as taxpayers to keep funding his fat congressional pension. Ney's too. But there's a lot more to their crimes than just a little multimillion dollar bribery. There's the question of treason. And it certainly doesn't stop with Randy Duke Cunningham.

It may take a little time but eventually it will come out that Donald Rumsfeld paid his very dear friend,  Ahmed Chalabi, an ambitious Iraqi Shiite working as a double agent for Iran, many millions of dollars to use, in part, as bribes that were paid to a number of Republican congressmen including Cunningham, Duncan Hunter, Jerry Lewis, Ken Calvert, Tom DeLay, Virgil Goode, John Doolittle... for starters. The CIA knew exactly what Chalabi was up to and Tenet blew the whistle on him again and again. Cheney and Rumsfeld and the neo-Con contingent in their orbit protected him even after Bush demanded that the Pentagon sever all ties with him.


Rumsfeld and Cheney have argued strongly that waterboarding helps get to the bottom of things. These two haven't told the truth. Cheney, in fact, claims he'll refuse to allow Congress to question him about anything. Look, I don't like the idea of torturing anyone, but they asked for this law to be passed. We might as well use it where it'll do some good. And then repeal it.