Are There Two Sets Of Rules?

by: DaveJ

Wed Jul 29, 2009 at 15:00

Have we developed into a country that has one set of rules for the people at the top of the ladder and another for the rest of us?  Or perhaps a special set of rules for Republicans and their cronies - IOKIYAR - and a completely different set of rules for Democrats?

I think the original model for "special set of rules" was Richard Nixon.  When Nixon was pardoned the whole country learned that you can get away with things if you have enough power.  You had to be there.  It wasn't just about "Watergate," it was about corrupting the entire system, breaking every rule, taking every bribe, starting illegal wars, spying on and using the power of government against your political opponents -- you name it the country by then knew that the Nixon administration had done it.

And then a few years later, Nixon explained, ""When the President does it, that means it is not illegal."

Sounds like an overall model for the Bush administration.

OK, that was a funny line, but think about it. If Nixon had not been pardoned, would the corruption of the Reagan administration have occurred?

"By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations.  In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever."
- Sleep-Walking Through History: America in the Reagan Years, by Haynes Johnson

As I said above, you had to be there.  These were not political prosecutions - Democrats just don't do that - these were the ones who were so bad that it just could not be ignored.  (One example: the Secretary of something was prosecuted for mob activities, and found not guilty after witnesses were murdered before they could testify.  Not that they were connected or anything.)

After Reagan was caught going around Congress' express instructions and sending arms to Iran the investigation was blocked and the perpetrators let loose.  The crimes were investigated by Iran/Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh who was blocked at every turn:

"Walsh recognized that many of the appeals judges held a "continuing political allegiance" to the conservative Federalist Society, an organization dedicated to purging liberalism from the federal courts.

"It reminded me of the communist front groups of the 1940s and 1950s, whose members were committed to the communist cause and subject to communist direction but were not card-carrying members of the Communist Party," Walsh wrote."

Walsh's investigation ended when Bush I pardoned all the potential witnesses against him.

So just as the corruption of Nixon set the stage for the corruption of Reagan/Bush, Reagan/Bush getting away with the most serious - and public - abuses of the Constitution and democracy set the stage for the political witch hunts against Clinton.  And it all set the stage for the Bush administration.

So far the Bush administration is clean off the hook for pretty much everything they did.  What does that tell us about what the next Republican administration will be like?

(continues)

But no, Democrats felt that it would be divisive to look any further into the crimes that had been committed under Reagan and Bush.

Take that back - there was one case where something a Republican had done was investigated.  During the Clinton/Bush campaign the Republicans spread a rumor that Clinton was a communist agent who had "gone to Moscow" as a young man, supposedly to get his instructions.  (Sound familiar?)  Someone in the bush administration illegally accessed Clinton's passport records and there was enough noise about it that a special prosecutor was appointed to look into it.  That prosecutor was conservative movement activist Joseph E. diGenova, appointed by conservative movement activist Judge David B. Sentelle (one of the judges Walsh complained about). The conclusion of the investigation was that even thought it was found that the records had been accessed, diGenova,

"apologized "on behalf of the United States government" to former presidential assistant Janet G. Mullins, the only named target of the investigation, and to others he said had been "unjustly accused" of wrongdoing."

Then along came President Clinton.  The Bush people had been let off the hook, and they took full advantage of their freedom.  Clinton and everyone in his administration, his friends, even people he hadn't seen for decades were investigated, hounded, jailed, impoverished and persecuted.  People were investigated for anything they might have done - ever - that might be able to be prosecuted.  Far-right conservative movement Federalist Society activists were appointed to be prosecutor by ... Federalist Society judges including Judge David B. Sentelle.  (Another of the three judge panel who appointed the conservative movement activists as prosecutors was Laurence Silberman, who had previously met with Iranians in 1980 supposedly to discuss holding the hostages until after the election.) Few Democrats had Clinton's back and tried to put a stop to it.  There were no filibusters, etc.

If you want to know about the difference between what can happen to you if you are a Democrats and if you are a Republican, please look up the case of Susan McDougal.  She spent 22 months incarcerated, often in solitary confinement, because she wouldn't say that Clinton had done something wrong in the Whitewater case.  No Democrats stepped in to help her.

And, by the way, no one in the Clinton administration was found to have done anything wrong.  No one.  Anything.  (Except one guy, who was only investigated in the first place because they were trying him to get to speak out against Clinton, was found to have overbilled clients years before he was in the administration.)  Compare this to the record of 138 from the Reagan administration.

Again, if you are investigating the difference between treatment of Dems and Republicans you can ask Don Siegleman.  The Obama Justice Department seems so ready to drop cases against Republicans, but not Don Siegleman.  Why not?

OK, I am going on and on.  I started doing some research and it led me to more, and I started remembering what was done to Clinton and the partisans who were appointed, and the partisans who appointed them...  I did start by warning you this is a rant.  

Here is my point:  Republicans not only prosecute Democrats freely, often with no reason, they hound them.  They use every bit of government power against them.  And Democrats largely let them get away with it.  So they do it again. And they do it to the very Democrats who won't stop them.  All the public knows is that Democrats are under investigation, and the Republicans can then run for office promising "to restore honor and integrity."

What About Bush?

So far we are simply letting Bush and his cronies get away with every single thing they did.  We just went through eight years of corporate corruption on a mass scale, illegal war, torture, wiretapping Americans, total abuse of power, political prosecutions -- everything Nixon did, and everything Reagan did, and more.

So far we are not investigating to see what can be done to prevent this all from happening again.  we are not holding anyone accountable.  We are just ignoring mass violations of law, and the public knows it.  We are not taking any steps to prevent future abuses of power.  We are letting the Bush administration become the role model for the next Republican administration, just as Reagan/Bush was a role model for Bush II, and Nixon was a role model for Reagan.

We are not making the statement that this country does not allow its leaders to get away with this kind of abuse of the law and democracy.

Why not?