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Keith Olbermann delivers arguably his most
pointed and most powerful Special Comment yet on the ramifications of
Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence.
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that
fundamental compact between yourself and the majority of this
nation's citizens -- the ones who did not cast votes for you.
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be
the President of the United States.
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely
the President... of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the
Republican Party.
Finally tonight, as promised, a Special
Comment on what is, in everything but name, George Bush's pardon of
Scooter Libby.
"I didn't vote for him," an
American once said, "But he's my president, and I hope he does a
good job."
That -- on this eve of the 4th of July -- is
the essence of this democracy, in seventeen words.
And that is what President Bush threw away
yesterday in commuting the sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
The man who said those seventeen words --
improbably enough -- was the actor John Wayne.
And Wayne, an ultra-conservative, said them,
when he learned of the hair's-breadth election of John F. Kennedy
instead of his personal favorite, Richard Nixon in 1960.
"I didn't vote for him but he's my
president, and I hope he does a good job."
The sentiment was doubtlessly expressed
earlier. But there is something especially appropriate about hearing
it, now, in Wayne's voice.
The crisp matter-of-fact acknowledgement that
we have survived, even though for nearly two centuries now, our
Commander-in-Chief has also served, simultaneously, as the head of
one political party and often the scourge of all others.
We as citizens must, at some point, ignore a
president's partisanship. Not that we may "prosper" as a
nation, not that we may "achieve", not that we may
"lead the world" -- but merely that we may "function."
But just as essential to the seventeen words
of John Wayne is an implicit trust -- a sacred trust:That the
president for whom so many did not vote, can in turn suspend his
political self long enough, and for matters imperative enough, to
conduct himself solely for the benefit of the entire Republic.
Our generation's willingness to state "we
didn't vote for him, but he's our president, and we hope he does a
good job," was tested in the crucible of history, and far
earlier than most. And in circumstances more tragic and threatening.
And we did that with which history tasked us.
We enveloped "our" President in 2001.
And those who did not believe he should have
been elected -- indeed, those who did not believe he had been elected
-- willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.
And George W. Bush took our assent, and
re-configured it, and honed it, and sharpened it to a razor-sharp
point, and stabbed this nation in the back with it.
Were there any remaining lingering doubt
otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when
Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.
Did so even before the appeals process was complete...
Did so without as much as a courtesy
consultation with the Department of Justice...
Did so despite what James Madison --at the
Constitutional Convention -- said about impeaching any president who
pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes "advised
by" that president...
Did so without the slightest concern that
even the most detached of citizens must look at the chain of events
and wonder:
To what degree was Mr. Libby told: break the
law however you wish -- the President will keep you out of prison?
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that
fundamental compact between yourself and the majority of this
nation's citizens -- the ones who did not cast votes for you.
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be
the President of the United States.
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely
the President... of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the
Republican Party.
And this is too important a time, sir, to
have a Commander-in-Chief who puts party over nation.
This has been, of course, the gathering
legacy of this Administration. Few of its decisions have escaped the
stain of politics.
The extraordinary Karl Rove has spoken of
"a permanent Republican majority," as if such a thing -- or
a permanent Democratic majority -- is not antithetical to that upon
which rests: our country, our history, our revolution, our freedoms.
Yet our democracy has survived shrewder men
than Karl Rove.
And it has survived the frequent stain of
politics upon the fabric of government.
But this administration, with ever-increasing
insistence and almost theocratic zealotry, has turned that stain...
into a massive oil spill.
The protection of the environment is turned
over to those of one political party, who will financially benefit
from the rape of the environment.
The protections of the Constitution are
turned over to those of one political party, who believe those
protections unnecessary and extravagant and "quaint."
The enforcement of the laws is turned over to
those of one political party, who will swear beforehand that they
will not enforce those laws.
The choice between war and peace is turned
over to those of one political party, who stand to gain vast wealth
by ensuring that there is never peace, but only war.
And now, when just one cooked book gets
corrected by an honest auditor...
When just one trampling of the inherent and
inviolable "fairness" of government is rejected by an
impartial judge...
When just one wild-eyed partisan is stopped
by the figure of blind justice...
This President decides that he, and not the
law, must prevail.
I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country
into war.
I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of
your own people, a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.
I accuse you of firing the generals who told
you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient.
I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless
deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters,
and friends and neighbors.
I accuse you of subverting the Constitution,
not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat
terrorists, but instead to stifle dissent.
I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own
people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought.
I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning
fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their
lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel
your opponents.
I accuse you of handing part of this republic
over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him
run roughshod over it.
And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving,
through that Vice President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help
defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to
Grand Juries and Special Counsel and before a court, in order to
protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your
guarantee that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as
Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of you becoming
an accessory to the obstruction of justice.
When President Nixon ordered the firing of
the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous
"Saturday Night Massacre" on October 20th, 1973, Mr. Cox
initially responded tersely, and ominously:
"Whether ours shall be a government of
laws and not of men, is now for Congress, and ultimately, the
American people."
President Nixon did not understand how he had
crystallized the issue of Watergate for the American people.
It had been about the obscure meaning behind
an attempt to break in to a rival party's headquarters; and the
labyrinthine effort to cover-up that break-in and the related crimes.
But in one night, Nixon transformed it.
Watergate -- instantaneously -- became a
simpler issue: a President overruling the inexorable march of the
law. Of insisting -- in a way that resonated viscerally with millions
who had not previously understood -- that he was the law.
Not the Constitution.
Not the Congress.
Not the Courts.
Just him.
Just - Mr. Bush - as you did, yesterday.
The twists and turns of Plame-Gate, your
precise and intricate lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of
Iraq; your lies upon the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon
the lies upon the lies to throw the sand at the "referee"
of Prosecutor Fitzgerald's analogy... these are complex and often
painful to follow, and too much, perhaps, for the average citizen.
But when other citizens render a verdict
against your man, Mr. Bush -- and then you spit in the faces of those
jurors and that judge and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal
-- the average citizen understands that, sir.
It's the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino
and the pre-arranged lottery all rolled into one -- and it stinks.
And they know it.
Nixon's mistake, the last and most fatal of
them, the firing of Archibald Cox, was enough to cost him the presidency.
And in the end, even Richard Nixon could say
he could not put this nation through an impeachment.
It was far too late for it to matter then,
but as the decades unfold, that single final gesture of non-partisanship,
of acknowledged responsibility not to self, not to party, not to
"base," but to country, echoes loudly into history.
Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign
Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush.
And that you could say it for Mr. Cheney.
You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday.
Which one of you chose the route, no longer matters.
Which is the ventriloquist, and which the
dummy, is irrelevant.
But that you have twisted the machinery of
government into nothing more than a tawdry machine of politics, is
the only fact that remains relevant.
It is nearly July 4th, Mr. Bush, the
commemoration of the moment we Americans decided that rather than
live under a King who made up the laws, or erased them, or ignored
them -- or commuted the sentences of those rightly convicted under
them -- we would force our independence, and regain our sacred freedoms.
We of this time -- and our leaders in
Congress, of both parties -- must now live up to those standards
which echo through our history:
Pressure, negotiate, impeach -- get you, Mr.
Bush, and Mr. Cheney, two men who are now perilous to our Democracy,
away from its helm.
And for you, Mr. Bush, and for Mr. Cheney,
there is a lesser task.
You need merely achieve a very low threshold indeed.
Display just that iota of patriotism which
Richard Nixon showed, on August 9th, 1974.
Resign.
And give us someone -- anyone -- about whom
all of us might yet be able to quote John Wayne, and say, "I
didn't vote for him, but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."
Good night, and good luck. |