Following up my post from a few days ago, I want to point out another sad OpEd piece by a Republican apologist. This time it’s Charles Fried, Solicitor General under Reagan and someone who thinks SCOTUS Associate Justice Samuel Alioto is just conservative and not nearly as radical as Freid’s longtime pal Antonin Scalia.
Freid’s essay addresses whether the Obama Administration should pursue criminal charges against Bush Administration staff and their allies in the various Cabinet departments over allegations of torture and perjury. He comes down, not at all surprisingly, against the idea:
There is now ample reason to believe that Mr. Gonzales was among those at the highest level of government who allowed Americans to engage in torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of those in our custody. Mr. Gonzales’s misleading and cowardly testimony certainly deprives him of any claim to our indulgence, but nonetheless neither he nor any of the others who participated in this abuse of detainees should be criminally prosecuted — not for their sakes but for the country’s.
Of course, we wouldn’t want to emotionally upset the country over partisan divisiveness! Unlike, say, what the Republican leadership did in the late ’90s to Bill Clinton, attempting to remove him from office for lying about getting a blow job.
I find this manner of claim sad enough but completely consistent with Republican behavior of wrapping themselves in the flag at every turn on every issue. Freid, though, doesn’t stop there; instead he elevates the hyperbole by comparing the charges to the behavior of Soviet dictators and–you guessed it–Hitler’s treatment of officials he perceived as betraying him. “Night of the long knives” indeed!
Apparently Freid has been working a bit past his sell by date, having been on the Harvard Law School faculty since 1961. I applaud the NY Times for attempting to present a balanced selection of perspectives but the editors need to exercise better judgment on what they publish.
And the Republicans need to recognize that miscreants need punishing, which would really be the best thing for America.
BillSaysThis 