I am back. And the holiday was boring as hell.

Bipartisanship and Truth

Jimmy Carter asked, "Why not the best?" Why can't Obama--and all of us--ask, "Why not the truth?" He wants bipartisanship? Fine. But why must bipartisanship require lies? And not just individual ones, but the whole Orwellian package that makes truth-telling virtually impossible? Why can't Obama simply and straightforwardly link the two together? Like this:

"We need to begin a new era of bipartisanship and truth."

What's wrong with that?
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Now, the standard Versailles narrative says that anything like this is not just impossible, but unthinkable. Any form of legal accountability would be retribution. (Note: not "seen as retribution by critics". After all, "fair and balanced" only goes so far.) Obama must choose. It's the only pragmatic thing to do: jettison justice in order to find what Bush would call "a new way forward." Which is, of course, Newspeak for "the same old way backwards into the exact same moral muck as those who attacked us on 9/11."
But what if Obama said good-bye to all that? What if he insisted on holding himself to a higher standard, and insisted that the only meaningful way to do this also required upholding the law for past violations as well? What if he said something like this:

In order to move forward and make a fresh start, we need to have a renewed commitment to truth--and that requires truth-telling about the past as well. We must hold those accountable who broke the law, and who lead us astray into un-American practices that have disgraced America's good name around the world. They have done uncalculable harm to America, regardless of their intentions. And a large part of the reason for this is because they acted in secret, and covered their actions in lies. They must be held accountable for this--both to show that world that we are serious about our values, and to ensure that this does not happen again. There are those who will say, "This is unconscionable. This political revenge-seeking. We cannot move forward together, while the Democrats are launghing political attacks."
But this is exactly backwards. If we uphold these past violations, even tacitly by refusing to investigate thoroughly and prosecute where called for, then we will be laying the groundwork for perpetuating the same sorts of violations ourselves. We cannot abide that. We cannot allow anyone--within this Administration or without--to think that we hold ourselves above the law. We must hold those who came before us accountable, precisely because that creates the demand that we be held accountable as well. This is the only way to begin earning your trust from the very beginning.MORE