Frank Rich on the National Circus: America Is Still in Denial About Torture
There are two important things to remember about this report: (1) We have only seen a fraction of it — a heavily redacted 524-page executive summary of a document whose full text exceeds 6,000 pages. Given how grotesque that censored executive summary is, it beggars the imagination to guess what horrors didn’t make the cut.
.. Addressing the passions aroused by Ferguson a couple of weeks ago,Obama reminded everyone that we are a nation of laws. But what does that even mean when the nation’s laws are not applied to those in power — whether CIA officers and others who practiced torture, or Wall Street executives who brought the world’s economy to the brink of ruin, looted their companies and their investors, and then escaped with their ill-gotten gains? The more flagrant the offense, the easier it is to escape, it seems.
.. The only Washington officials of stature who have been outspoken about the need to expose the truth — Dianne Feinstein, John McCain, Mark Udall — have in common that their careers as national politicians are nearing an end. The GOP’s presidential hopefuls are running for cover, Rand Paul included. And Hillary Clinton, who has said almost nothing publicly about torture, could be found, as usual, straddling.
On Monday, the Times and the Washington Post published stories on the desire of GOP megadonors to coalesce early around a 2016 presidential nominee and avoid a repeat of the drawn-out and circuslike 2012 primaries. Predictably, big Wall Street donors are pining for Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, or even a return of Mitt Romney, while a host of more tea-party-friendly candidates like Rand Paul and Rick Perry have begun to mount their own backers. The GOP almost always nominates an Establishment candidate, but you’ve been clear that the party’s present and future lies with its radical wing. Is there any way the Republicans don’t have an even more drawn-out and circuslike primary season than they did in 2012?
What emerges from both these stories is yet another example of how adrift America is from its identity as a “nation of laws.” A bunch of billionaires just assume — not entirely without reason — that they can choose the next president and, with their fortunes, install him as the Republican nominee and, perhaps, as the next president.