Watch as George Bush sells out Justice

Posted by Joel Friedlander | 1 Comment

I hear that the Justice Department is conducting an investigation of the lawyers who justified waterboarding for the Bush Administration in the bad old days following 9/11. I have a suggestion about why it is being done now.

First let us turn to the Cinema. There is an interesting scene in the last part of The Maltese Falcon, in which the conspirators meet in the detectives apartment. They need a fall guy to ward off a later investigation.

Spade: I’m in this up to my neck, Gutman. I’ve got to find somebody – a victim – when the time comes. If I don’t, I’ll be it. Let’s give ‘em the gunsel. He actually did shoot Thursby and Jacobi, didn’t he? Anyway, he’s made to order for the part, look at him. Let’s give him to ‘em.

Gutman (bursts out laughing): By gad, sir, you are a character, that you are. There’s never any telling what you’ll say or do next, except that it’s bound to be something astonishing.”

Well, if you substitute President George W. Bush for Sam Spade and the Justice Department lawyers who approved waterboarding for the gunsel (named Wilmer in the film) you have what is going on in Washington. George W., has only eleven months left in the White House and he and all the members of his administration know that when the Democrats take over the White House and Congress in 2009, the first thing they’re going to do is investigate how the United States got into the torture business.

Bush also knows that when its concluded, the names of the perpetrators of the vilest and most internationally damaging episode in our history will be known. It will be too late for President Bush to pardon them, and Vice President Cheney, his legal adviser David S. Addington, former Justice Department attorney John Yoo (who teaches law at the University of California Berkeley), former head of the Departments Office of Legal Counsel Jay S. Bybee, and former Attorney General Ashcroft will probably be in the group.

It is even possible that President Bush will be there himself. So, he is offering up the lawyers at the Justice Department as a sacrifice to Congress and the American people to prevent the indictment of his buddies and probably himself.

Will he get away with this ruse? Will the Justice Department finish its investigation before the end of the President’s term of office? Will the accused lawyers save their own skins by turning on the administration and telling where their marching orders came from? Will our country become an honored member of the society of nations again?

Stay tuned!

- Joel Friedlander

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