Era of Responsibility

Obama said he will give “America a president who taught the Constitution and believes in the Constitution and will obey the Constitution of the United States”. Having said that he is obligated to investigate the abuse of power and attacks on our Constitution under George Bush and Dick Cheney.

When asked about supporting the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush Cheney administration like torture and wire tapping Obama said “my general belief is that when it comes to national security, what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future as opposed to looking what we got wrong in the past”.

Russell Feingold chair of the Constitution subcommittee in a December letter to Obama outlining the need to restore the rule of law said “the need for a detailed accounting of what happened over the past eight years, and how the outgoing administration came to reject or ignore so many of the principles on which this nation was founded. It seems to me we must fully understand the mistakes of the past in order to learn from them, address them, and prevent them from recurring”.

Elizabeth Holtzman former district attorney in Brooklyn New York states “Failure to prosecute trivializes and encourages crimes. The same holds true of political abuses-failure to hold violators accountable condones the abuse and entrenches acceptability creating a climate in which it is likely to be repeated. The doctrine of impunity suggests, too, that there is a dual system of justice-one for the powerful and one for ordinary Americans. Because the concept of equal justice under the law is the foundation of democracy, impunity for high-level officials who abuse power and commit crimes erodes our democracy”.

George Bush as president could have any citizen arrested and jailed without due process of law guaranteed under the Constitution along with the Bill of Rights; and all because the president labeled them an enemy combatant. Without the proper investigation to correct this abuse, can Obama do the same? And if he can, do we have a president and a country as envisioned by the authors of the Constitution or a monarch who is the law like the one the Founders rebelled against?

If Bush and Cheney are allowed to be above the law, then Obama and all the future presidents will be above the law. Our democracy will be lost and the Constitution becomes a worthless piece of paper with nothing left to teach or obey.

In his inaugural address president Obama told us we are entering a "new era of responsibility". Without an investigation and an act of responsibility his words are meaningless.