The Fundamental Things Still Apply

As time goes by.

Andy Sullivan writes passionately about the Cheney Torture Administration:

If I had one belief in politics, it would be that the freedoms secured by the modern West are worth fighting for. Absolutely central to those freedoms is barring the executive branch from torturing people. No power is more fatal to freedom and the rule of law than torture. It is like Tolkien's ring: no society remains free, if its rulers use it. Its power is banned because it is a solvent to the rule of law, the establishment of truth, and the limits of government. For an administration to secretly and illegally unleash this weapon - against citizens and non-citizens alike - and to demand that it not be subsequently called to account, that it be allowed to get away with it under some absurd notion that it's too divisive to hold war criminals accountable for their crimes is and was an outrage. Punishing those responsible for war crimes is not "scapegoating". You know what scapegoating is? It's throwing Lynndie England in jail for following orders given by George W. Bush, while leaving him to the luxury of a Texan suburb.

The precedent of a torturing American president must be reversed. That means it cannot be allowed to stand.
...

Nothing to be disagreed with there, right? An honorable sentiment, clearly expressed.

Except…

Except for the key, core question that is always omitted from the protestations of outrage by our apostate Conservatives friends:

Where in the world did the Cheney Torture Administration ever get the idea that it was above the law to begin with?

For that matter, where did the millions and millions of supporters of the Cheney Torture Administration ever get the idea that it was perfectly OK -- perhaps even noble -- for a Republican President to arrogate monarchical powers to himself?

Do you think maybe it was from this guy...

who saw his massive, filthy assault on the Constitution as “politics, pure and simple”? Who believed -- as millions of his Republican followers believed and still believe -- that the only problem with Watergate was that he didn’t burn the tapes?

Or do you think maybe the idea that the rule of law doesn’t apply to Republicans was primarily the legacy of these guys?


Those Heroes of Conservatism who, between them, sold weapons to terrorists, used the money from their illegal arms deals to fund an illegal war, and set the precedent for dealing with Republican traitors by issuing pardons for every fucking one of them:

…
But in a single stroke, Mr. Bush swept away one conviction, three guilty pleas and two pending cases, virtually decapitating what was left of Mr. Walsh's effort, which began in 1986. Mr. Bush's decision was announced by the White House in a printed statement after the President left for Camp David, where he will spend the Christmas holiday.

Mr. Walsh bitterly condemned the President's action, charging that "the Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed."

Mr. Walsh directed his heaviest fire at Mr. Bush over the pardon of Mr. Weinberger, whose trial would have given the prosecutor a last chance to explore the role in the affair of senior Reagan officials, including Mr. Bush's actions as Vice President.
…

Or did the notion that the Constitution is merely a political weapon that Republicans only manage to remember when they’re periodically driven out of power -- which they only ever manage to love in high, apoplectic dudgeon when they figure an angle from which they can use it to smash their way back into power -- come from this guy?


Or this guy?


Or this guy?


Or this guy?


Or any of the hundreds of strutting, little demagogues who have always filled out the front benches of American Conservatism?

No, the simple truth of the matter is that Conservatism is not a movement. It is a social disease, and for most of his adult life Andy Sullivan has been one of its most enthusiastic carriers.

Sullivan lives with his mark of Wingnut Cain and maintains his career by taking shelter beneath the comforting bombast that the Cheney Torture Administration was the result of spontaneous generation. Was some kind of xenogenic accident of political birth. But of course that is a complete lie. The obscenity of the Cheney Torture Administration was not an anomaly, a sport or a freak but instead fell perfectly along an arc that American Conservatism has been following for decades.

The truth is that, the Cheney Torture Administration staged this latest bloody, Constitution-raping Republican rampage…

…clad in the philosophical glad rags Conservatives like Sullivan spent decades stitching for them…

…shod in the shoes Conservatives like Sullivan spent decades cobbling together…

…treading the boards Conservatives like Sullivan spent decades planing, varnishing and hammering into place…

…in the political theater built with blueprints Conservatives like Sullivan spent decades sketching out…

…on a foundation poured from the ideological concrete Conservatives like Sullivan provided.

That has always been the simple, unbearable truth at the heart of Conservatism that Conservatives like Sullivan will never bring themselves to face.

It's still the same, old story.

As time goes by.