I know that we are all supposed to be talking about Paul Ryan and Medicare, but the other day saw an echo of the Bush years that Republicans, or at least conservatives, should be a lot more exercised over: the pending criminal prosecutions against CIA interrogators. Former AG Muskasey made some very pointed comments blasting the Obama administration for letting these men twist in the wind, so as to preserve the Democrat talking point about Bush-era "torture:" (h/t Powerline) Attorney General Eric Holdercame under fire today from his predecessor at the Justice Department for pursuing criminal action against CIA employees involved in the enhanced interrogation of terrorists.
Following a speech at The Heritage Foundation, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey called Holder’s handling of matter “absolutely outrageous.” He said the cases involving CIA employees were settled by career prosecutors who determined the prosecutions should not go forward.
“The current attorney general, when he took office, without reading the memos, directed that those investigations be reopened,” Mukasey said. “I think that was an unconscionable thing to do — not only to the people involved, but also to the agency, which is demoralized by something like that. People were essentially told they can’t rely on opinions of the Justice Department.”
Mukasey added that Holder’s actions against the CIA operatives would stifle intelligence gathering by the United States.
You know, if Ramsey Clark goes out and denounces the US while standing next to this or that post-colonial dictator, it's Big News, and we hear all about how he is a "former Attorney General of the United States," rather than describing him as he really is: a sour old man who hates his country and hasn't held a real job in decades. Meanwhile, great former Republican AG's like Judge Mukasey go about their business in relative anonymity.
The better question is why isn't the Right treating this as a bigger deal? These interrogators apparently were some of the few effective CIA employees out there., They seem to have brought in a lot of useful intelligence through their interrogations. And they didn't torture anybody. George Bush said so. I realize that this might make me sound like a wing-nut, but I'll rely on W's assessment over Eric Holder's any day.
The Left spent the Bush years making dubious civil rights martyrs out of some of the worst of the worst: Jose Padilla, the Lakawana Six, the Flying Imams, and more. Where are the right wingers making these CIA guys into a cause celebre? They are certainly a lot more deserving than Osama Bin Laden's driver, who had enough legal assistance to take a case all the way up to the Supreme Court. But, American citizens who may have interrogated terrorists are spending a ton of money defending themselves against a left-wing revenge prosecution?
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The Left's lawfare was some of the most destructive work of the Bush era. The term "shredding the Constitution" was on every Democrat's tongue. It was part of the overall narrative that something uniquely evil and untoward was going on in the Bush White House. Well, the exact same thing is going on in the Obama administration, but the right seems to be nowhere.
