A brief question

By Heraclitus

Am I the only one (I know like half my posts begin this way) who is a little confused by the "scandals" that are actually sticking against members of the Bush administration? First there was Alberto Gonzales, who wrote the memo which, to the extent we know what's going on inside the Bush administration, paved the way for Abu Ghraib, and more generally gave the proverbial green light to torture. More recently he was seen assuring a panel of Senators that there is no right to habeas corpus in the Constitution. What finally catches up with him? The politicized firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. Don't get me wrong, I'm not pooh-poohing the importance of this. U.S. attorneys (of which there are only ninety-three total) play an important role in the federal legal system, and firing qualified attorneys because they refuse to act as political lackeys is indeed a serious offense. But compared to being one of the architects of a regime of torture?

Likewise, Wolfowitz may now be going down for giving his partner significant pay raises. This situation is somewhat different; Wolfowitz, whatever his other faults, never did anything so bad as advocate the casual use of torture (again, at least so far as we know). But one of the leading proponents and planners of the invasion of Iraq, possibly the most disastrously incompetent adventure in the history of American foreign policy, may be forced from public life over something so banal and tawdry (although it appears he'll be staying)? Is there something I'm not getting here? Is there some reason the press and, in the case of Gonzales, the Democrats are more comfortable attacking on these mundane, almost bureaucratic grounds? I suppose it does help it all look less "political," but I can't help but find the lingering unwillingness to oppose things like torture to be inauspicious.