Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Pat Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a speech at Georgetown that he favors the formation of a Truth Commission to investigate possible war crimes by the Bush administration:
In a speech at Georgetown University, Leahy suggested the commission could have subpoena power and the authority to grant immunity from prosecution. He told reporters afterward that he envisions a panel that's bipartisan and looks at a wide variety of topics, including the Iraq war and politicization at the Department of Justice.Others, including House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), have made similar proposals. Leahy's comments (video from C-SPAN here) were his first endorsement of such an idea, and he would have a key role in shaping such a proposal because of his committee's jurisdiction.
"We need to get to the bottom of what happened and why," Leahy said. "The reason we do that is so that it'll never happen again. One path to that goal would be a reconciliation process--a truth commission."
I think it's a mistake to make the mandate of the commission that broad. The commission should be empowered to investigate abuses of power undertaken in the war on terrorism and that's it. I'd leave out the Iraq War, the U.S. Attorneys scandal and everything else. That mandate is still quite broad; the commission would then look at torture and abuse of inmates, extraordinary rendition, warrantless wiretapping, the suspension of habeas corpus, Gitmo and other related issues.
But if you make it too broad, you undermine its ability to operate and reach a consensus. For example, you would likely have lots of members who would agree on torture and habeas corpus, but not agree that the administration lied about pre-war intelligence on Iraq. And that kind of disagreement can reduce the effectiveness of such a commission to persuade the public.
Naturally, the Republicans think this would all just be a political witchhunt:
A response from Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), ranking GOP member of the House Judiciary Committee:"No good purpose is served by continuing to persecute those who served in the previous Administration. President Obama promised to usher in an era of 'change' and bipartisan harmony. Unfortunately, the continued effort by some Democrats to unjustly malign former Bush Administration officials is politics as usual.
"We have already had a thorough investigation into the Justice Department, including a two year inquiry led by Democrats in Congress and an official investigation by the Justice Department's Inspector General. The Inspector General made recommendations to prevent future wrongdoing and those recommendations have already been implemented. Rather than continuing to waste taxpayers time and money on fruitless finger-pointing, Congress should focus on the future and what we can do to help the American people during these difficult times."
But here's an easy and obvious way to take care of these arguments: Appoint Republicans and conservatives to lead the commission. Bruce Fein would make a terrific chairman for the commission. Not only is he fiercely opposed to the Bush administration on all of the issues I listed, but he was the #2 man in the Reagan DOJ and he is an icon in the conservative legal community. No one could seriously accuse him of being a partisan Democrat, for crying out loud.
Same with John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute. And David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union. All three should be on the commission. All three are members of the American Freedom Agenda organization. They would pretty much destroy any notions of a commission acting in a partisan manner on behalf of Democrats.
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Fine then...do you support a separate commission to study the run-up to the Iraq War, and a third for the U.S. Attorney scandal? All three are bad, and one could make a convincing argument that falsification of info to push the country into the Iraq War would be as damning as the civil rights violations.
Posted by: Shygetz | February 12, 2009 9:13 AM
Posted by: Taz | February 12, 2009 9:15 AM
I wondered about that as well Taz, but then it occurred to me, the "liberal" media is part of the Obama administration therefore every story that they present that is critical of the Bush administration's policies is obviously part of that Democratic persecution of good patriotic Republicans. You could also that reality, with its unfair liberal bias, has been persecuting them for a number of years now.
;o)
I agree that the commission should only look at the prosecution of the war on terror. I don't know that anything would come of an investigation of the stated reasons for the war in Iraq, though an investigation of the corruption, graft, and waste implemented in the years following the war could be quite interesting.
Posted by: dogmeatib | February 12, 2009 9:22 AM
Prosecute, persecute, po-ta-to, po-tah-to.
Posted by: Chris A | February 12, 2009 9:32 AM
Who is the author of those last two paragraphs? Did the Republicans suddenly start making some sense or was that someone else's commentary?
Posted by: Abby Normal | February 12, 2009 10:00 AM
Abby - I have a feeling Ed forgot to close his blockquote.
Posted by: Taz | February 12, 2009 10:26 AM
Cool.
A "Truth" Commission.
Can we get Henry Kissinger to lead it? He's got by far the longest record of continuous official criminality anywhere in the Village.
Then we'll have another really, REALLY useless 'report.'
Posted by: woody | February 12, 2009 10:41 AM
Cool.
A "Truth" Commission.
Can we get Henry Kissinger to lead it? He's got by far the longest record of continuous official criminality anywhere in the Village.
Then we'll have another really, REALLY useless 'report.'
Posted by: woody | February 12, 2009 10:41 AM
The only problem with this is that the war on terror and Saddam's fictional links with Al Qaeda were constantly being invoked to justify both the war in Iraq and various other vagely related things.
How do you separate them cleanly, when the government were constantly to conflate them in order to justify pretty much anything by pressing the 'fear of terror' buttons in the American psyche. As far as they seemed to be concerned it was all part of the same crusade.
Posted by: Matthew | February 12, 2009 11:55 AM
I meant "..constantly trying to conflate them..." of course.
Posted by: Matthew | February 12, 2009 11:57 AM
After thinking about what you said, that the commission should have a narrower focus, I agree with you. For one, having a narrower focus is more likely to get support.
And, BTW, is anyone surprised the Republicans don't want their dirty laundry aired in public?
Posted by: Mobius | February 12, 2009 12:11 PM
And, BTW, is anyone surprised the Republicans don't want their dirty laundry aired in public?
It's not just the Pukes with shitstains in their shorts, amigo. The Dims have plenty of nicotine in the crotches of their tighty-whitees, too.
NOBODY wants there to be a complete reckoning. So anything they do will be nothing more than a cosmetic examination. Can you say "Single Bullet?" I knew you could...
Posted by: woody | February 12, 2009 12:27 PM
Ed most surely forgot to close his block quotes. The phrase "for crying out loud" at the end of the next to last paragraph is one of his trademark clichés.
Posted by: Keanus | February 12, 2009 2:13 PM
People complain that Obama isn't going after these war crimes with hammer and tongs. My guess is that he's looking for cover. He really trully wants to avoid political polarization. So he won't push the issue, but will let his AG come to him with something like, "Gee, we looked under this big rock and just happened to find these abuses and, gosh darn, the law and our treaty obligations obligate us to go down this path of prosecution. We don't have a choice." Then Obama can say to the people, "I really want to look forward, but my AG tells me that the law must take it's course. It's not what I wanted, but it's something we as a country are obligated to do."
It won't convince any of the hard right (or maybe even the mild right), but it can at least let him stick to the high road.
I'm really curious (and hoping) to see if it plays out that way.
Posted by: Scott | February 12, 2009 4:15 PM
Scott, that's rather what I'm hoping for, also, although I don't get any impression that Obama is purposely taking that tack. Instead, I hope that enough pressure can be built up that it would be politically practical for him to sign on for more investigations.
Incidentally, I thought the DOJ firings were still an open case? I would hate to see a Congressional commission crowd out an ongoing legal investigation.
Posted by: Scott Hanley | February 12, 2009 5:44 PM
I have a great idea. Prosecute them on all counts and let them yell "witch hunt", and "persecution" from the comfort of a federal prison. The Bush Administration committed too many crimes with total disregard for the Constitution, the American people, and without remorse of any kind. Lock them up and throw away the keys.
Posted by: Phil Moon | February 12, 2009 9:40 PM
Or, you know, it's just possible that the current President of the United States of America is no more enthusiastic about real constraints on the power of his office than the last one was.
Really, there's a point at which optimism crosses the line into fantasy. How about we look at what he actually says, and particularly what he actually does, and then try and draw conclusions based on that, rather than making up stuff about what he really believes and then inventing excuses for why he can't act in accordance with those beliefs? Maybe his actions are actually guided by his real beliefs? Maybe he ran for President because he wanted power?
This sort of thing is really no different to the time Digby started theorising that the Dems voted for the FISA bill granting retro-active immunity to the telcos because they were being blackmailed. It simply never occurred to her to even consider the possibility that they might be genuinely in favour of the idea.
Posted by: Dunc | February 13, 2009 5:17 AM
Mmmm...MinTruth. Er, truth commission....
(Do politicians use these types of names as an in-joke or something? Even if it's a good idea, the name is, well, not..)
Posted by: dreikin | February 15, 2009 11:18 PM