{"id":1603,"date":"2009-09-03T06:51:58","date_gmt":"2009-09-03T12:51:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=1603"},"modified":"2009-09-03T06:59:01","modified_gmt":"2009-09-03T12:59:01","slug":"serious-breaches-of-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=1603","title":{"rendered":"Serious Breaches of Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Broder<\/a> argues today that while he supports accountability for illegal acts and serious breaches of trust, he does not support investigating illegal acts and serious breaches of trust.  I have trouble putting these two claims together: <\/p>\n

First, we should investigate and hold accountable the guilty:<\/p>\n

\n

My friend and fellow columnist Eugene Robinson<\/a> has written a characteristically passionate and well-reasoned piece<\/a> commending Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to name a special counsel<\/a> to examine possible law-breaking by interrogators of terrorist subjects during the last administration. <\/p>\n

But I think he is wrong. <\/p>\n

First, let me stipulate that I agree on the importance of accountability for illegal acts and for serious breaches of trust by government officials<\/strong> — even at the highest levels. I had no problem with the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, and I called for Bill Clinton to resign when he lied to his Cabinet colleagues and to the country during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I'm all for that as well.  Now the second claim:<\/p>\n

\n

Cheney is not wrong when he asserts that it is a dangerous precedent when a change in power in Washington leads a successor government not just to change the policies of its predecessors but to invoke the criminal justice system against them.<\/strong>  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Illegal acts.  The policies of the previous administration may have involved–may have involved–illegal acts.  Their being policies of an administration does not remove them from the realm of legal and illegal.  At least I hope it does not.  Broder continues. <\/p>\n

\n

I think it is that kind of prospect that led President Obama to state that he was opposed to invoking the criminal justice system, even as he gave Holder the authority to decide the question for himself. Obama's argument has been that he has made the decision to change policy and bring the practices clearly within constitutional bounds — and that should be sufficient<\/strong>.  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Accountability for illegal acts.  Now for some self-congratulation:<\/p>\n

\n

When President Ford pardoned Nixon in 1974, I wrote one of the few columns endorsing his decision, which was made on the basis that it was more important for America to focus on the task of changing the way it would be governed and addressing the current problems. It took a full generation for the decision to be recognized by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and others as the act of courage that it had been.<\/strong>  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It's hard for me to understand the logic of this argument.  If Broder took the position that Clinton should have been impeached for lying in a civil deposition (lying to the country and his cabinet colleagues was not the crime in question, I think) about the character of an adult consensual relationship with a former employee, then how does it not follow that much more serious crimes (such as torture, murder, conspiracy, etc.) deserve at least to be investigated by the criminal justice system?  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Broder argues today that while he supports accountability for illegal acts and serious breaches of trust, he does not support investigating illegal acts and serious breaches of trust.  I have trouble putting these two claims together: First, we should investigate and hold accountable the guilty: My friend and fellow columnist Eugene Robinson has written … Continue reading Serious Breaches of Trust<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,515],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david-broder","category-inconsistency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}