I don't really expect President Obama to order the extraordinary rendition of Bush and Cheney to The Hague to stand trial for war crimes. But feel free to savor the image.
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The general consensus: it's going to be up to the next president to sort all this out. But the candidates' campaigns are, as it were, all about shadows masquerading as substance. The latest kerfuffle about Barack Obama's alleged snub of Hillary Clinton in the crowd after the State of the Union is just the latest case in point. The leading Republican candidates, meanwhile, are no longer distancing themselves from Bush but pretending his policies have succeeded. They're quite comfortable with their party of more death and less taxes.
No wonder we heard at Davos that whosoever is elected will face the greatest challenges since FDR. And no wonder a few of the people I met drew a vindictive conclusion from that fact: someone—like Bush—should be held responsible. A former American intelligence officer now in private business looked me in the eye one night and said quite bluntly, "What they've done is criminal." The phrase had the kind of finality you might have heard in 1789—or maybe a couple of years later, when the guillotine got greased up. But of course that's not going to happen, even metaphorically. Bad kings don't pay for their crimes these days, nor do presidents who thought they ruled by divine right. Only the people do.
© 2008
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