Updated: 5/1/08; 8:12:15 AM.
Patricia Thurston's Radio Weblog
        

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Andrew Sullivan: Bush Administration Officials Will Be 'Indicted For War Crimes'

<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/03/disclosure-of-torture-mem_n_94984.html";>Media coverage of the disclosure of the "torture memo" authored by Bush Justice Department official John C. Yoo has been mostly a deafening silence. But on this morning's Chris Matthews' show, someone finally fired a shot. As we mentioned in this morning's <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/06/tv-soundoff-sunday-talkin_n_95275.html";>liveblog, credit goes to The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, for taking the opportunity to ensure that this matter got out into the televised discourse somehow.

SULLIVAN: The latest revelations on the torture front show the memo from John Yoo...means that Don Rumsfeld, David Addington and John Yoo should not leave the United States any time soon. They will be, at some point, indicted for war crimes.

[WATCH.]

<iframe src="http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1488687062"; width="486" height="412" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

The moment came during a segment on Matthews' show where the panel is invited to "tell him something he doesn't know," though this might be more accurately termed, "something he doesn't know he should talk about." Matthews is hardly alone. <a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/04/reporting-yoos.html";>Via Sullivan, we are directed to <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/05/media/index.html";>the blog of Glenn Greenwald:


Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:

"Yoo and torture" - 102

"Mukasey and 9/11" -- 73

"Yoo and Fourth Amendment" -- 16

"Obama and bowling" -- 1,043

"Obama and Wright" -- More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)

"Obama and patriotism" - 1,607

"Clinton and Lewinsky" -- 1,079

I'd also like to quote Greenwald at length here:

Every day, it becomes more difficult to blame George Bush, Dick Cheney and comrades for their seven years (and counting) of crimes, corruption and destruction of our political values. Think about it this way: if you were a high government official and watched as -- all in a couple of weeks time -- it is revealed, right out in the open, that you suspended the Fourth Amendment, authorized torture, proclaimed yourself empowered to break the law, and sent the nation's top law enforcement officer to lie blatantly about how and why the 9/11 attacks happened so that you could acquire still more unchecked spying power and get rid of lawsuits that would expose what you did, and the political press in this country basically ignored all of that and blathered on about Obama's bowling score and how he eats chocolate, wouldn't you also conclude that you could do anything you want, without limits, and know there will be no consequences? What would be the incentive to stop doing all of that?

He couldn't be more right, I'm afraid.

- Jason Linkins [huffpolitics on The Huffington Post]
5:03:01 PM    comment []

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