Ex-White House press secretary Scott McClellan wrote What Happened, a scathing indictment of the Bush administration’s overarching, persistency in ‘spinning,’ ‘twisting,’ and ‘denial’ of almost everything that related to matters of truth, and now everyone is up in condemning arms about the author. “He’s a despicably disloyal traitor.” “He’s come a little late to the telling.”

My take on criticizing Mr. McClellan is a paint brush with coarse bristles that slathers the majority of the oh-so self-righteous Americans with a rather toxic tincture of blame. Legal precepts such as “accessory before the fact,” and the “prudent-person rule,” and of course Vice-president Cheney’s “other priorities at the time” hit my consciousness like the blazing light that assaults the pupils after a few hours in a mid-summer matinee movie.

Oversight of the executive branch of government is perhaps the most consequent task assigned to both chambers of the legislative branch by the Constitution of the United States. The framers felt that oversight by the legislative of the executive was all that could prevent the nascent democratic republic from devolving into tyranny and dictatorship by a power-hungry executive. Whether in the House of Representatives or in the Senate, an oversight hearing — or, any hearing, for that matter — can be called ONLY by the chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over the subject matter! (The exclamation point is inserted because pitifully very few Americans have that very elemental bit of knowledge about the elements of American government.)

The Republicans gained control of the House in 1994, and didn’t lose it until 2006. The Republicans held control of the Senate until 2007.

Until 2007, there was not held even one serious oversight hearing by the Republican majority. Oh, I recall with astonishment the blistering examination of then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales by Utah Senator Orin Hatch, “General Gonzales, how many folks work in your department?”

Attorney General Gonzales, looking a bit bewildered (not, as would become embarrassingly clear, an unusual characteristic of the AG), “Um, gosh, Senator, I’m not sure.”

“Would it be fair to say that the number is in the thousands?”

Detecting where the line of questioning was likely headed, the eyes of the witness brightened and a smirking smile dominated his face. “Yes sir, I’d say at least that number.”

“Well, Mr. Attorney General, I’ve got to say that it would be totally unreasonable for anyone to expect that you would know what each of these thousands of people in your department are doing at all times. Would you agree with that?”

We can only imagine that same blistering tenor of inquiry might have met Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, or then National Security Advisor Rice, in an oversight hearing . . . if there had been one; just one.

Serious? Oversight?

If you provide a weapon to an acquaintance that you, as a “reasonable person” know, or should know, will be, or will likely be, used in the commission of a criminal act, you are subject to criminal indictment as an accessory before the fact.

In both 2004 and 2006, every reasonable person who voted Republican knew or could legitimately be seen to have known every one of the “before the fact” travesties of justice, of human decency, of economic common sense, and of so much more that the Bush administration would perpetuate. The evidence was already there, on the table. It had been there all through the preceding four years! Thus it is that I would indict everyone who voted Republican in 2004 and 2006 as willing accomplices of all the terrible crimes committed, equal participants in the commission of the entire catalog of the unspeakable misanthropy just as much as the members of the administration. They’ve the blood of millions on their hands, and no sum of scrubbing will blot even the edge of the crimson stains: Were it not for those who voted GOP in 2004 and 2006, all the wrongs since would not have been the least possible. And not being the least possible, they would not have occurred. (I intentionally omit the 2000 and 2002 elections only because I have a kind heart, an understanding nature, and a forgiving disposition.)

Claiming “I didn’t know” is not exculpatory. This is where the Cheney “other priorities” grasp for an excuse isn’t at all helpful. It isn’t, because the well-founded, time and court tested “Ignorance of the law is no excuse” doesn’t free anyone from the hook of their trespasses of the law either.

Very few folks any more subscribe to the weekend edition, let alone a daily subscription to a newspaper. Indeed, fewer and fewer bother to read one, and of those who do, survey upon survey conclude that only the headlines get scanned, while greatest readership is focused on the sports pages. Where most in America get their national news today is from the half-hour of televised network or cable news. And what is delivered in that half-hour; diluted to 22 minutes (of which almost a full two minutes of the “news” is naught but a commercial for some other program, later that evening), after subtracting the commercials? Additionally, or diminishingly, every telecast now feels obligated to include at least two minutes to some “feel good” story; the 3-year-old in North Platte who saved the family by alerting the parents a fire was raging in the living room.

Whereas the Internet can be an excellent source of genuine in-depth coverage, and most of it is FREE, again referring to those surveys, the overwhelming majority of those using the Internet use it primarily for sending jokes and emails to friends and relatives, and, of course, for shopping.

On the other hand, relatively speaking, how many subscribe to the free Intenet offerings of Army Times, or the New York Times, or the Los Angeles Times, or the Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal, or to Human Events, or any number of a variety of excellent, very in depth sources for information and opinions from along the political continuum?  How many, as compared with, say, those who cannot bear to miss such informative television fare as the Rice Krispies Greater East Moline Open, or Oprah, or Judge Judy, or Rachel Rae, or American Idol, or Sex and the City, or America’s Funniest Home Videos, or Crossing Jordan, or . . . ? I know. I know: “other priorities at the time.”  

Finally arrives the most damning critique of the criticism of Mr. McClellan, that he wasn’t so especially disturbed at the time by administration practices he now berates.

Repeatedly I have heard the empty refrain, how folks just do not discuss amidst friends and family “religion or politics;” forget entirely any thought about sternly challenging a friend or family member for his or her religious or political predispositions, or voting behaviors. Isn’t that just damned cowardly, and thoroughly disgustingly disingenuous: to expect and demand that Scott McClellan exhibit extraordinary courage before an executive who has repeatedly demonstrated the most diabolical responses to even the most minimal of behaviors it perceives as even marginally disloyal, while reserving for oneself such a dastardly cloak?     

So I say to all who are chastising Mr. McClellan, regardless the direction from which the arrows are flung, “Do not ask for whom the bell tolls . . .”  One either has basic principles, and is willing to sacrifice on behalf of them, or one has none.

— Ed Tubbs

     Palm Springs, CA