Banana Republic?

Well, maybe not yet, but according to Republican Senator Kit Bond, the country is surely heading in that direction.

The Senator…

“This whole thing about punishing people in past administrations reminds me more of a banana republic than the United States of America. We don’t criminally prosecute people we disagree with when we change office. There were a lot of questions that could have been asked of the Clinton administration failing to recognize the war on terror. They did not. The Bush administration went forward and that’s the way our country should. The president said he was going to be forward looking and now he has opened up a stab in the back.”

“Disagree with”?  What???!!??  Is there not a difference between disagreement and criminal activity?  If there is evidence that the past administration did indeed take part in unlawful acts, is it not the duty of the office of the Attorney General and Congress to investigate such activity?

This goes beyond politics and it’s a crying shame that once more an important issue gets caught in the crossfire of the left-right divide.  If Democratic members of Congress were aware of waterboarding and other illegal activities which were authorized by the Bush administration, then they too should be investigated and punished as the law requires.

Sometimes it should only be about right or wrong.

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UPDATE

I just came across this on HuffPo:

“We need to look at to make sure exactly what happened is known to the public and to deter any future president from doing like behavior, if it was wrong,” said one well-respected member of Congress. “In that regard, if we can do it in a bipartisan fashion, I think that’s what we should do. Every American benefits when you can control X abuse of power. If this was an abuse of power, then we need to know about it.”

It was February 2001 not April 2009. The topic was Bill Clinton’s controversial pardon of Marc Rich not the use of torture techniques on detainees. And the above quote was attributed to Rep. Lindsey Graham.

Here’s more on what Republicans had to say in 2001.

“This is “outrageous,” said then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who called for a congressional investigation. “We should at least take a look at what happened and ask ourselves, should we take some action to try to prevent abuses that do occur?”

“Congress has an obligation to find out if this was appropriate,” said House Government Reform Committee Chair Dan Burton (R-IN) on January 26. “[My] panel will obtain ‘subpoenas if necessary‘”

Hypocritical scum.  Here’s what Karl Rove now says…

“What [Obama has] essentially said is if we have policy disagreements with our predecessor, we are going to do is turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run by colonels in weird sunglasses,” said Karl Rove, during an appearance on Fox News. “Is that what we’ve come to in this country?”

Need I say more?

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