1 Boring Old Man

I had a few moments in college when I considered going into Law. My roommate at the time was in Law School. One night, we were talking and he said, "You think being a lawyer is about right and wrong?" He went on to describe the alternative – due process, the right to having the best defense, etc. I didn’t listen too carefully to his explanation. His question had been enough. I’d already decided to move on to something else, because he was on target – I did think it was about right and wrong. If it was about something else, I wasn’t interested. But, over the course of time, I’ve seen or been involved with the legal process more than I would’ve liked, and I’ve been surprised. As confusing and as slow as the judicial system can be, it usually does the right thing [or the right enough thing], even in situations where it didn’t come out like I wanted it to.

The C.I.A. Leak case only resulted in a commuted sentence for a lackey – Scooter Libby – but it exposed a lot of the story to people who don’t keep up with such things. It took the vague preoccupations of bloggers into front page newspaper articles and political speeches where it belonged. We finally began to hear people saying things like "… lied to take us to war." And the trial itself gave us the first taste of the now ubiquitous "live blogging" of such events – catapulting the bloggers into the "real" media. The Law didn’t give us everything we wanted because the Law required proof that the parties under suspicion knew that Valerie Plame was a covert agent [it may be true that they didn’t]. But the trial made it clear who did what and why. Patrick Fitzgerald said "there’s a cloud over the Vice Presidency" – and that cloud has never lifted. It’s hard to realize that the Libby Trial ended only a little over two years ago, and look at where we are now.

What now? The Bush people are out of office, though their Party remains a problem. And the shadow of their Administration hangs heavily over the land. America is no longer a victim [September 11, 2001], we are the perpetrators [unjust invader of a sovereign state, torturers, a rogue nation]. We have a corrupted Constitution and a deeply divided people. Some want us to put the past behind us to "look forward" and "heal" [President Obama]. Others want us to examine the past and right the wrongs [me and probably you]. So we come again to the Law. The abuses of power during the Bush Administration were masterminded by lawyers [David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, etc.]. They were obsessed with negotiating their way through the Law, all the while claiming they were the Law. With a few exceptions [Jim Comey, Jack Goldsmith, Patrick Fitzgerald], they "owned" the Department of Justice.

Comes now Eric Holder, our new Attorney General – the focus of a lot of media attention this weekend. Today, he is the Law. Will he appoint a Special Prosecutor or not? Here’s the media’s take:

The President has said he won’t interfere with the D.O.J., but he’s also been negative about prosecuting his predecessors. There’s plenty going on with two wars and the economy [or its absence]. So what’s Holder going to do? I don’t think that a rational Attorney General looking at this last eight years can avoid doing anything. There’s too much – the prewar intelligence distortions, the N.S.A. Spying, disavowing the Geneva Conventions, Torture, Rendition, failing to notify Congress. He has to pick something that fits criminal statutes [you can’t just say "you’ve been very bad boys"], yet something that doesn’t effect National Security or weaken our future leaders and our Government Agencies.

It’s easy to sit out here and say "get them!" It’s much harder to frame "get who?" for "doing what?" because it’s against "which law?" As little as I know about the Law itself, I do have an opinion. I would want Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor with very broad powers, like Fitzgerald had. The Bush White House twisted and bent so much, and I’ll bet we don’t know the half of it. I don’t care about punishing the involved parties, but I do care about not exonerating them. So I would like to see any trials be like the Libby Trial, focused on people who definitely broke the law in ways that can be proved. But I would also like to see broad enough charges to expose the breadth of their deceit. It’s a tall order for Eric Holder because success depends on his initial appointment. We owe Jim Comey a debt of eternal gratitude for appointing Patrick Fitzgerald and giving him the tools for a complete investigation. Let us just hope that Eric Holder can follow Comey’s lead…