(I)n the Washington Post today, Barton Gellman reports that Vice President Cheney’s lawyer, David Addington, actually signed then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales’s name to the document:Who honestly believes these fuckers deserve to survive their crimes?Addington opened the code-word-classified file on his computer. He had a presidential directive to rewrite.
It has been widely reported that Bush executed the March 11 order with a blank space over the attorney general’s signature line. That is not correct [15]. For reasons both symbolic and practical, the vice president’s lawyer could not tolerate an empty spot where a mutinous subordinate should have signed. Addington typed a substitute signature line: “Alberto R. Gonzales.”
I know some of you will say my suggestions are extreme, but dire situations require dire solutions, and this case, it seems to me, calls for the "Chinese Civic Justice" for officials who betray their responsibilities and get caught: Once a malefactor is identified as being a threat to (the legitimacy of) the State, there's a show-trial, and a pro forma conviction, after which, the condemned is given a shovel and a place to dig a hole. Then they're stripped to their underwear and told to kneel in the hole they dug, whereupon a couple of small-caliber bullets are fired into the brain at point-blank range. The corpse is then covered in quick-lime, and the hole covered.
The Right always stresses the 'deterrence' power of such (oh, yes, old man, veddy) "capital" solutions. I dunno, but it might be worth a shot (or two). And even if deterrence doesn't work, it'd sure cut into any recidivism issues that might otherwise occur.
Addendum: Doonesbury nails it, albeit a bit less finally than my idea...
No comments:
Post a Comment