To Prosecute or Not to Prosecute

I had written a piece about how Evolution doesn’t disprove the existence of God, but my friend Bill pointed out the holes in my logic, showing me I had taken on a much bigger topic than I could handle in a small blog. Thanks, Bill for your clarity.

So, instead I’ve decided to write about Torture. (A much smaller topic?) As a spiritual person I don’t like to label things “good” and “bad.” But Torture seems to be so obviously “wrong” on so many levels. It’s illegal, immoral and, according to some experts in the field of interrogation, pretty much useless.

I can’t deny that there’s a part of me that would relish seeing Bush and Cheney go down for something. After all the ways they abused the American people, caring more for the have-mores and stepping over the Rule of Law whenever they pleased, getting us into a war under false pretenses . . . It seems like, if they were prosecuted and did time, it would go a step further in preventing other administrations from torturing ever again. But I don’t know if there’s a guarantee of that.

Frankly, it could well become a witch hunt, as I am not the only person in this country who would enjoy getting some Justice. But what would be the cost of that Justice? Justice, while a splendid concept, in practice, is not always about what’s Right.

Matt Taibbi, author and contributing editor for Rolling Stone Magazine, said on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” that prosecuting these upper level people would “suck all the air out of the room.” It would take away attention from all that Obama wants to do. Healthcare, Energy and Education are big initiatives. He’s not likely to get anyone to listen if Bush and Cheney are on the chopping block. Maybe later, in his second term, when things have calmed down in this country and we’re on a better path, maybe then we can consider an investigation to set the record straight and tell the truth for posterity. Doing that might offer some healing and make others think twice about doing it again. If we push this now, though, we may not get all the wonderful things on President Obama’s agenda.

There are no “little guys” to protect, as Cheney would have us believe. The little guys have already gone to prison. President Obama has squashed all the fabricated loopholes that made torture possible. There is no chance that anyone will be tortured while he’s in office. We can only hope that future generations will act as wisely.

Lipstick on Limbaugh

Everyone seems to have an opinion about how to fix the economy and what forces came together to make it happen. I’m not sure we’ll ever know for sure. But I imagine, a logical way to go about solving it would be talking to as many experts as you can (you can’t listen to everyone or you’ll go crazy and never make a decision). President Obama has talked to Republicans, consulted with Economic Experts and I’m sure he’s listened to what the media is saying, too. I trust we can all agree Barack Obama has a good mind, well-trained, the product of a fine, expensive education. I don’t know about you, but that’s the kind of mind I want on this problem.

Perhaps I don’t really know enough about politics, but at the moment anyway, what would possibly be Obama’s political agenda in this? What does he need right now? He has plenty of resources, a nearly full Congress, stacked in his favor and he’s the leader of the free world. He’s a Smart Man, he knows he has to do it. How would it be in his best interest to make things worse in this country?

There are ideological differences here. The Obama plan is about fixing things from the bottom up. And there are some who think that’s the wrong way to go about it. People are shouting he’s not changing things fast enough. Others think he’s going too far. He’s only had 6 weeks at the helm. The Washington Way has been going on a long time. It can take a while to turn the tide. Almost everyone agrees (certainly all the economists I’ve heard) that SOMETHING has to be done.

This Rush Limbaugh thing is so absurd. Sounds more like its coming from the Karl Rove play book of The Art of Distraction. (How I wish we had Al Franken commenting on all this. I pray he’s writing, while he waits.) Republicans, for the most part, are doing the talking about this, not President Obama. Why would it serve him to divert attention from what he’s doing when he’s busy changing the world one community at a time? I refer to the photo-op with the rehired police in a small community in Ohio. Not seen nearly as much as the disturbing video of Rush bopping up and down at CPAC.

Rush has become a story for the media to chew on. Put Lipstick on Limbaugh and everyone will talk about it. What we have is TV Entertainment News. (See the fabulous movie, Broadcast News with Holly Hunter, Albert Brooks and William Hurt!) I admit, I get most of my news from that very Same. I regularly watch the MSNBC night crew and never miss a Daily Show. But since they spend a lot of video on what the Right is saying, I feel I have the gist of it. Television News these days seems to distill what’s happening into neat little bits flavored with their own particular spice rub. This week’s “news cycle”, is doing nothing to solve the economic situation (desperate as usual). It’s just raising Rush Limbaugh up there with Joe the Plumber. I would so much rather hear about what’s going on with the Stimulus bill, learn more about it, hear economists debate it.

This, I suspect, is the province of Newspapers. And what about our Newspaper Crisis? To Be Continued . . .