This morning’s This Week contains a clue as to whether Obama is taking seriously the rule of law in the United States. In response to Stephanopolous raising the appointment of a special prosecutor to independently investigate the crimes of the Bush Administration (e.g., torture and warrantless wiretapping), Obama said:
We have not made final decisions, but my instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward we are doing the right thing. That doesn’t mean that if somebody has blatantly broken the law, that they are above the law. But my orientation’s going to be to move forward.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So, let me just press that one more time. You’re not ruling out prosecution, but will you tell your Justice Department to investigate these cases and follow the evidence wherever it leads?
OBAMA: What I — I think my general view when it comes to my attorney general is he is the people’s lawyer. Eric Holder’s been nominated. His job is to uphold the Constitution and look after the interests of the American people, not to be swayed by my day-to-day politics. So, ultimately, he’s going to be making some calls, but my general belief is that when it comes to national security, what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future, as opposed looking at what we got wrong in the past.
This is simply wrong. You’re not going to know how to get things right in the future if you don’t know what and how you got it wrong in the past.  I understand that it would be a politically unpopular thing to do. But Obama wasn’t elected just to do popular things. He was elected to do a job. His job, as I noted the other day, is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. You don’t do that by ignoring the people who have turned the Federal government into a vehicle for destroying it. You don’t do that by providing clear evidence that there are no consequences for breaking the law. You have Cheney out there essentially daring Congress and the incoming administration to do anything about his actions, and this is Obama’s response?
The saddest part? Is that we’ve seen this happen before. And following instincts like Obama’s here is a large part of what made the Bush Administration possible.
sasha
Completely wrong. I’m having a hard time understanding why he doesn’t see it.
MB
I don’t think it’s so much a question of perception as values. I don’t doubt, for a second, that Obama doesn’t see and understand the damage that the Bush Admin has done. I think, though, that he values (and as a result, overestimates the utility of) magnanimously moving ahead. Probably assumes that the lesson will be taken sub silencio. I might be wrong. But I doubt it.
Karen
This is very well put.
I don’t think it’s only about taking the magnanimous road; there’s something to be said for looking to the future instead of getting tangled up in punishments and lawsuits that can feel like dragging the nation back into the past and into endless pettiness, all aimed at a disgraced administration that we’ve finally gotten rid of. It would be refreshing to the national spirit to move into an era where we didn’t have to see the name “Cheney” in any more headlines.
Of course, the point is that this time the investigation wouldn’t be petty, and treating it as such (the implication being that we don’t need to bother fussing over the past) is dangerous. The Bush administration’s actions are very much relevant to the present and future. They should absolutely bring consequences, and if that’s going to happen, now’s the time.
If there is no prosecution, the real sub silencio lesson is that the government can get away with anything, and that we don’t take the rule of law seriously.