By Phillip J. Chesser / Chronicle contributor
If people find media circuses entertaining, then they should by all means encourage the new President’s justice department to indict President George W. Bush. If they want a replay of Watergate, Iran Contra, the Clinton impeachment and trial, or the Florida recount debacle of 2000, citizens should push for a trial.
I would love to see a trial. Like Florida 2000 high powered lawyers from the nation’s best law firms and the most prestigious law schools would leap at the chance to either prosecute or defend President Bush. As I watched the legal arguments in Florida 2000 I marveled at the skills of lawyers from both sides: David Boise for the Democrats and Ted Olson for the Republicans, to name just two, were eloquent when presenting their points of view. I also enjoyed the back and forth between lawyers and judges.
Better, a Bush trial would provide history and civics lessons for citizens. People would learn that President Bush’s power abuses are not unlike those of many of his predecessors. Take for example the great emancipator Abraham Lincoln. He suspended habeas corpus in Maryland, holding Maryland secessionists in prison without preferring charges (which the Constitution requires) and without trial, not unlike the prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with a big difference, Lincoln’s prisoners were American citizens and were imprisoned here. Lincoln also imprisoned newspaper publishers and editors who criticized him.
Other Presidents who have abused their authority: the post World War I Red Scare raids of Woodrow Wilson’s Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer trampled citizens’ rights. Then before Pearl Harbor FDR engaged in unconstitutional back channel operations to aid the British and the Russians not unlike Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North’s illegal actions with the Contras in Nicaragua. And FDR imprisoned thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry just because of the way they looked.
President Truman committed the United States to war in Korea but never asked for a declaration of war. Instead, he got UN support. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson sent troops to Vietnam on questionable Constitutional authority. President Johnson used the fictional Gulf of Tonkin incident to encourage Congress to support his Vietnam troop buildup.
The invented Gulf of Tonkin incident should remind readers of the infamous weapons of mass destruction even though President Bush’s faulty intelligence had been believed by President Clinton and by the courageous Democrats in Congress who voted overwhelmingly for the resolution to send an invasion force to Iraq. The action taken as a result of the resolution is not permitted by Article I of the Constitution, but only a few principled Congressmen like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich voted against the President.
A trial would also focus interested citizens’ attention on the Constitution and the executive powers permitted therein. A debate about that would do a great service to the country.
President Bush will never be brought to trial, however. President Obama is wrong about many things but he is not stupid and does not want a sideshow keeping him from becoming the greatest President who has ever lived. Additionally, like most Presidents he does not want his power diminished. A trial would not only force close examination President Bush’s actions but also of any future unconstitutional actions President Obama will most certainly want to take. He most assuredly would not welcome that.
But who would not love to see a trial?
