1 Boring Old Man

Over the years of treating traumatized people, I learned to avoid the "healing" metaphor. It’s only useful if you recognize that "healing" often leaves a big ugly scar, or a bad limp, or some other disability that must be adapted to. And that’s not what most people mean. They mean those wonderful things that the body can do with minor to moderate cuts and bruises – make them vanish. In something so big as the Bush Years, that option is unavailable. We’ll not be looking for healing here. But the first order of business is diagnosis.

I was disappointed in the outcome of Patrick Fitzgerald’s Investigation of the Valerie Plame Affair. Fitzgerald did a fine job, but the only standard he had was Criminal Statutes. Given the narrowness of the law about outing a Secret Agent, he couldn’t prove that they knew that she was a Secret Agent when they outed her. So, Fitzgerald couldn’t go after the whole gang, nor could he make the general population aware of all the other sleazy stuff that case contained. The real issue, abuse of power to start a disasterous war, was way too far off of the stage. At the time of Fitzgerald’s Inquiry, many of us lamented that crime was too low a standard to measure the behavior of high officials. I was equally disappointed by the 911 Commission. It revealed a lot, but it operated with incomplete information, and its conclusions, if anything, missed the center of the target. They were more like "regrettable" than "outrageous!"

So back to the goal. As a Progressive/Liberal/Democrat etc., I want all of America to share my chronic outrage at what happened. That’s a wish, but not guaranteed. So what do I think is a reasonable goal? I think it’s reasonable to place the whole story in front of the American people – not the debate about what’s right or wrong – but the facts as they unfolded from the day the Supreme Court elected George W. Bush until the day he went back to Crawford – a parallel narrative of what they said they were doing, and what they actually did [and why]. I hope that given the facts, the consensus is close to what I think. But it might not be and I can live with that. I can’t live with what’s happening now. Back to the medical metaphors, the disease is still raging, undiagnosed.

Treatment comes later. I think that the best way to proceed would be a Commission. "Un-partisan" is impossible. The best hope is "balanced." So it should be composed of people not in the fray. How would one construct such a Commission? I think we have a traditional way of doing that. It’s called Voir Dire. One empanels the best group you can come up with. Then representatives from both sides interview the candidates, and take turns eliminating people until the required number remains. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we’ve come up with so far. While it would be bringing the methodology of the criminal courts to bear on an investigative body, I can’t think of a better way to approach the problem.