George W. Bush: Presidential Criminal

Recent polls have suggested that the popularity of former president, George W. Bush, is recovering somewhat since he left office as the most unpopular president in history.  

 

And now his disastrous eight year administration is about to be whitewashed and forgotten even more as the George W. Bush Presidential Center is set to officially open on May 1, 2013.

The $250 million, 25 acre, 207,000 square feet complex, including Bush’s presidential library, a museum, the GWB Policy Institute, and the offices of the GWB Foundation, will become the second-largest presidential library in history, dedicated to polish this incompetent man’s legacy and completely distort history.

If there were ever any doubt there certainly isn’t any now that George W. Bush is and was a presidential criminal. This man should be occupying a prison cell, not dedicating a $250 million complex to his failed and felonious presidency. He’s not a war criminal because he never presided over any real war except for his own imagined undeclared “war on terror.” He’s just a common criminal who used his high office to commit crimes.

But in the United States of America that’s what our presidents can do and they always get away with their crimes scot free. Bush is not the first presidential criminal and I’m sure he won’t be the last. Barack Obama seems to be following suit.

Richard M. Nixon was proven beyond a reasonable doubt a criminal who obstructed justice, attempted to cover up the crimes of his subordinates, lied under oath, repeatedly violated the constitution, and used his office to further his criminal actions.

Had he not resigned when he did he clearly would have been impeached, and had President Ford not pardoned him he no doubt would have been convicted of his crimes. But no – he has a presidential library today too, and his legacy seems to be glowing brighter as time goes by.

Bill Clinton was caught red handed committing perjury, lying under oath, and obstructing justice, all serious crimes, yet he narrowly escaped impeachment but not disbarment as a lawyer in his home state. Today he enjoys the status as an elder statesman in the Democratic Party and universal adoration and respect from the American public.

So while commoners like you and me can commit petty misdemeanors and find ourselves doing time in the slammer, presidential criminals can literally get away with murder in some instances, much less commit other serious felonies, and still remain respected pillars of society.

I knew that George W. Bush was a criminal while he was still in office. That’s why it comes as no surprise to me that a nonpartisan group led by a former top Bush administration official concluded a two-year review on last week that finds the former president and his top advisers knowingly ordered interrogation techniques that U.S. officials have previously referred to as torture.

George W. Bush presided over torture and now there is no longer any reasonable doubt. Both President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have admitted in public that they specifically ordered the use of enhanced interrogation tactics.

You’re “damn right” we did it, they both admit, and “it was good,” “it worked” they both insist. But the Obama administration has consistently denied that the use of torture led to information that helped them find and assassinate al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

“After conducting our own two-year investigation, weighing the credibility of all sources and studying the current public record, we have come to the regrettable, but unavoidable, conclusion that the United States did indeed engage in conduct that is clearly torture,” former Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), who served as undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security during the Bush administration, declared.

The investigation includes interviews with dozens of people who have first-hand knowledge of the discussions about interrogation techniques and their implementation. Although Bush administration loyalists said at the time that “enhanced interrogation tactics” like stress positions, water boarding, mock executions, sensory deprivation and prolonged diapering were not torture, this report aims to specifically and finally emphasize that these activities meet the clinical definition of “torture.”

“What sets the United States apart as a world leader, in addition to our military might, are our values and respect for the rule of law. All the available evidence led us to conclude that, for many of these detainees, the U.S. violated both international law and treaties and our own laws, greatly diminishing America’s ability to forge important alliances around the world,” former Rep. James R. Jones (D-OK) added in the group’s advisory.

“This has not been an easy inquiry for me, because I know many of the players,” Hutchinson told The New York Times. “But I just think we learn from history. It’s incredibly important to have an accurate account not just of what happened but of how decisions were made.”

But now all criminal investigations into the Bush torture program have been called off by the Obama administration.

Yes, Barack Obama – isn’t he the guy that presided over the murder of the innocent 16 year old son of Anwar al-Awlaki? Isn’t he the guy who is presiding over the murders of innocent bystanders in the imaginary “war on terror” on a daily basis?

UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo helped craft the Bush administration's torture and detention policies in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. He’s the guy who, while he was a deputy assistant attorney general, convinced the criminal Bush that torturing people was just fine.

There were plenty of other aiders and abettors in the administration who gleefully assisted George. W. Bush: Presidential Criminal. I’m sure all of them will have prominent places in the new George W. Bush Presidential Center and that all of their infamous crimes will soon be forgotten.