Paul Krugman Supports an Inquest of Possible Crimes Committed by the Bush Administration

Paul Krugman of the New York Times, steps away from his usual remarks regarding economic issues and voices his opinion that the incoming Obama Administration is duty bound to fully investigate the outgoing Bush Administration for suspected criminal activities over the past eight years. Krugman displays his deep feelings of unease that such an investigation might not take place when he remarks: "Last Sunday President-elect Barack Obama was asked whether he would seek an investigation of possible crimes by the Bush administration. “I don’t believe that anybody is above the law,” he responded, but “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.” Krugman retorts: "I’m sorry, but if we don’t have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years — and nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama’s remarks to mean that we won’t — this means that those who hold power are indeed above the law because they don’t face any consequences if they abuse their power." Krugman seeks to add a sense of clarity in discussing his convictions: "Let’s be clear what we’re talking about here. It’s not just torture and illegal wiretapping, whose perpetrators claim, however implausibly, that they were patriots acting to defend the nation’s security. The fact is that the Bush administration’s abuses extended from environmental policy to voting rights. And most of the abuses involved using the power of government to reward political friends and punish political enemies." Krugman notes: "At the Justice Department, for example, political appointees illegally reserved nonpolitical positions for “right-thinking Americans” — their term, not mine — and there’s strong evidence that officials used their positions both to undermine the protection of minority voting rights and to persecute Democratic politicians." Krugman contends: "The hiring process at Justice echoed the hiring process during the occupation of Iraq — an occupation whose success was supposedly essential to national security — in which applicants were judged by their politics, their personal loyalty to President Bush and, according to some reports, by their views on Roe v. Wade, rather than by their ability to do the job." Krugman continues his remarks: "Speaking of Iraq, let’s also not forget that country’s failed reconstruction: the Bush administration handed billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to politically connected companies, companies that then failed to deliver. And why should they have bothered to do their jobs? Any government official who tried to enforce accountability on, say, Halliburton quickly found his or her career derailed." Adding to his case for the investigation of the Bush Administration, Krugman reminds his readers that: "There’s much, much more. By my count, at least six important government agencies experienced major scandals over the past eight years — in most cases, scandals that were never properly investigated. And then there was the biggest scandal of all: Does anyone seriously doubt that the Bush administration deliberately misled the nation into invading Iraq?" Krugman, having assembled his concise list of charges attempts to understand why an investigation of the Bush Administration only seems like a remote possibility. "One answer you hear is that pursuing the truth would be divisive, that it would exacerbate partisanship. But if partisanship is so terrible, shouldn’t there be some penalty for the Bush administration’s politicization of every aspect of government?" Continuing, Krugman gives another answer that is often used to promote inaction: "Alternatively, we’re told that we don’t have to dwell on past abuses, because we won’t repeat them. But no important figure in the Bush administration, or among that administration’s political allies, has expressed remorse for breaking the law. What makes anyone think that they or their political heirs won’t do it all over again, given the chance?" Krugman follows with a perceptive charge: "In fact, we’ve already seen this movie. During the Reagan years, the Iran-contra conspirators violated the Constitution in the name of national security. But the first President Bush pardoned the major malefactors, and when the White House finally changed hands the political and media establishment gave Bill Clinton the same advice it’s giving Mr. Obama: let sleeping scandals lie. Sure enough, the second Bush administration picked up right where the Iran-contra conspirators left off — which isn’t too surprising when you bear in mind that Mr. Bush actually hired some of those conspirators." Krugman acknowledges that: "it’s true that a serious investigation of Bush-era abuses would make Washington an uncomfortable place, both for those who abused power and those who acted as their enablers or apologists. And these people have a lot of friends. But the price of protecting their comfort would be high: If we whitewash the abuses of the past eight years, we’ll guarantee that they will happen again." And Krugman makes an incontrovertible point that: "Meanwhile, about Mr. Obama: while it’s probably in his short-term political interests to forgive and forget, next week he’s going to swear to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient." It's an oath that defines the constitutional duties of the President of the United States during every moment that he serves in office. In conclusion, Krugman expresses his conviction that: "... to protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that’s not a decision he has the right to make." Yes, in the final analysis it is all about the Constitution and it's authority to ensure that our nation is governed by the supremacy of the rule of law and not by the whims of humans acting out their own interests; that is the whole point behind why the Constitution is such a magnificent document that holds a stature high above all other humanly created documents in the history of the human race. And that is why every effort; regardless if it brings shame, legal conviction and a legally determined conviction, must; not should; be made to fully carry out the legal investigation of the Bush Administration by the Obama Administration in order to determine whether crimes had been committed during Bush's term in office no matter how partisan or unseemly such an event might seem to us in the present. Because we, as a nation of free humans are required by our constitutionally bound system of government to do our duty and investigate all illegal and unconstitutional actions. Otherwise, the United States faces a bleak future ruled by the self interests and self determined beliefs of humans rather than by constitutionally sanctioned laws because we are honor bound to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Nothing less nor nothing more is required of us.
That, in its most rudimentary of explanations, is why we must conduct an official, legally dtermined inquiry into alleged illegal abuses of power carried out during the Bush years!