IS BUSH AS BAD AS BOKASSA?

Bush used a napkin

It took a bipartisan majority to make the threat of impeachment vivid enough for Nixon to force him to resign. It will be far, far more difficult-- given the narrow partisan bent of today's GOP-- to find a bipartisan majority to ever allow Bush and Cheney to be brought before a war crimes tribunal. But this morning one Republican predicts that it is bound to happen. "Abu Ghraib was never, ever an exception. It was permitted, enabled, authorized and pre-meditated by Bush, Cheney, Yoo, Rumsfeld, Miller, and Addington, among many others. The techniques testified to correspond with chilling accuracy to techniques authorized by the president, for which we now have overwhelming evidence."

Writing at the Atlantic's blog, Andrew Sullivan lays out the case for Bush and Cheney turning a torture regime into national policy. Sullivan doesn't discuss the politics of criminalizing Bush's behavior. Sure, only 18-24% of Americans think he's doing a good job, but how many would agree to handing him or Cheney over to a war crimes tribunal? Everyone I know, of course... but not many others. And fewer politicians from either party. I think it would take Bush and Cheney inviting the Central African Republic's deposed Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa for a nice meal of American school children-- providing it was captured on film-- for Americans to ever agree to hand Bush over to face justice. (By the way, Emperor Bokassa, despite eating some of his subjects, first had his death sentence commuted and was eventually pardoned.)