By Vincent Bugliosi
"That the king can do no wrong is a necessary
and
fundamental principle of the English constitution."
—Sir William
Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of
England, 1765
"No living Homo
sapiens is above the law."
—(Notwithstanding our good friends and legal
ancestors across the water,
this is a fact that requires no
citation.)
With respect to the positionI take about the crimes of George Bush, I want to state at the
outset that my motivation is not political. Although I've been a longtime
Democrat (primarily because, unless there is some very compelling reason to be
otherwise, I am always for "the little guy"), my political orientation is not
rigid. For instance, I supported John McCain's run for the presidency in 2000.
More to the point, whether I'm giving a final summation to the jury or writing
one of my true crime books, credibility has always meant everything to me.
Therefore, my only master and my only mistress are the facts and objectivity. I
have no others. This is why I can give you, thereader, a 100 percent guarantee that if a Democratic president had done
what Bush did, I would be writing the same, identical piece you are about to
read.
Perhaps the most amazing thing to me about the belief of many that
George Bush lied to the American public in starting his war with Iraq is that
the liberal columnists who have accused him of doing this merely make this
point, and then go on to the next paragraph in their columns. Only very
infrequently does a columnist add that because of it Bush should be impeached.
If the charges are true, of course Bush should have been impeached, convicted,
and removed from office. That's almost too self-evident to state. But he
deserves much more than impeachment. I mean, in America, we apparently impeach
presidents for having consensual sex outside of marriage and trying to cover it
up. If we impeach presidents for that, then if the president takes the country
to war on a lie where thousands of American soldiers die horrible, violent
deaths and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children,
even babies are killed, the punishment obviously has to be much, much more
severe. That's just common sense. If Bush were impeached, convicted in the
Senate, and removed from office, he'd still be a free man, still be able to wake
up in the morning with his cup of coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice and
read the morning paper, still travel widely and lead a life of privilege, still
belong to his country club and get standing ovations whenever he chose to speak
to the Republican faithful. This, for being responsible for over 100,000 horrible deaths?* For anyone
interested in true justice, impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did.
Let's look at the way some of the leading liberal lights (and, of
course, the rest of the entire nation with the exception of those few
recommending impeachment) have treated the issue of punishment for Bush's
cardinal sins. New York Times columnist
Paul Krugman wrote about "the false selling of the Iraq War. We were railroaded
into an unnecessary war." Fine, I agree. Now what? Krugman just goes on to the
next paragraph. But if Bush falsely railroaded the nation into a war where over
100,000 people died, including 4,000 American soldiers, how can you go on to the
next paragraph as if you had been writing that Bush spent the weekend at Camp
David with his wife? For doing what Krugman believes Bush did, doesn't Bush have
to be punished commensurately in some way? Are there no consequences for
committing a crime of colossal proportions?
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