對上一任總統的過錯，是應該忘記或原諒呢？這是每一個總統都會面臨的問題，尤其是面對一個錯失連連的前任總統。但是，克魯曼清楚的點出忘記前任總統的錯誤之錯誤在於：如此一來，所有擁有權力的人將永遠不必面對他所做的錯誤之後果。連美國都必須面對，「清算」前任總統可能帶來的「黨派分裂」，而克魯曼說，黨派紛爭如此不好，那不如不要政黨好了，就不會有黨派爭鬥了。更有甚者，也指出，未「清算」前任總統是因為我們不會再犯同樣的錯，但是，他完全沒有看到布希政府有任何人表示對過去的錯誤懺悔之意，嗯，各位，聽起來，似乎有點似曾相識，只是在此，台灣有人有這個道德勇氣說出這些話嗎？說出「指出」前任政府錯誤的真正意 義，不在清算而在為未來開啟更新的路。
Krugman: Forgive and forget?
By Paul Krugman
Friday, January 16, 2009
Last Sunday President-elect Barack Obama was asked whether he would seek an investigation of possible crimes by the Bush administration.
"I don't believe that anybody is above the law," he responded, but "we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards."
I'msorry, but if we don't have an inquest into what happened during theBush years - and nearly everyone has taken Obama's remarks to mean thatwe won't - this means that those who hold power are indeed above thelaw because they don't face any consequences if they abuse their power.
Let'sbe clear what we're talking about here. It's not just torture andillegal wiretapping, whose perpetrators claim, however implausibly,that they were patriots acting to defend the nation's security. Thefact is that the Bush administration's abuses extended from environmental policyto voting rights. And most of the abuses involved using the power ofgovernment to reward political friends and punish political enemies.
At the Justice Department,for example, political appointees illegally reserved nonpoliticalpositions for "right-thinking Americans" - their term, not mine - andthere's strong evidence that officials used their positions both toundermine the protection of minority voting rights and to persecuteDemocratic politicians.
The hiring process at Justice echoed the hiring process during the occupation of Iraq- an occupation whose success was supposedly essential to nationalsecurity - in which applicants were judged by their politics, theirpersonal loyalty to President Bush and, according to some reports, by their views on Roe v. Wade, rather than by their ability to do the job.
Speakingof Iraq, let's also not forget that country's failed reconstruction:the Bush administration handed billions of dollars in no-bid contractsto politically connected companies, companies that then failed todeliver. And why should they have bothered to do their jobs? Anygovernment official who tried to enforce accountability on, say, Halliburton quickly found his or her career derailed.
There'smuch, much more. By my count, at least six important governmentagencies experienced major scandals over the past eight years - in mostcases, scandals that were never properly investigated.
And thenthere was the biggest scandal of all: Does anyone seriously doubt thatthe Bush administration deliberately misled the nation into invadingIraq?
Why, then, shouldn't we have an official inquiry into abuses during the Bush years?
Oneanswer you hear is that pursuing the truth would be divisive, that itwould exacerbate partisanship. But if partisanship is so terrible,shouldn't there be some penalty for the Bush administration'spoliticization of every aspect of government?
Alternatively,we're told that we don't have to dwell on past abuses, because we won'trepeat them. But no important figure in the Bush administration, oramong that administration's political allies, has expressed remorse forbreaking the law. What makes anyone think that they or their political heirs won't do it all over again, given the chance?
In fact, we've already seen this movie. During the Reagan years, the Iran-contra conspirators violated the Constitution in the name of national security. But the first President Bush pardoned the major malefactors, and when the White House finally changed hands the political and media establishment gave Bill Clintonthe same advice it's giving Obama: let sleeping scandals lie. Sureenough, the second Bush administration picked up right where theIran-contra conspirators left off - which isn't too surprising when youbear in mind that Bush actually hired some of those conspirators.
Now, it's true that a serious investigation of Bush-era abuses would make Washingtonan uncomfortable place, both for those who abused power and those whoacted as their enablers or apologists. And these people have a lot offriends. But the price of protecting their comfort would be high: If wewhitewash the abuses of the past eight years, we'll guarantee that theywill happen again.
Meanwhile, about Obama: While it's probablyin his short-term political interests to forgive and forget, next weekhe's going to swear to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." That's not a conditional oath to be honored only when it's convenient.
Andto protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more thanobey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate theConstitution accountable. So Obama should reconsider his apparentdecision to let the previous administration get away with crime.Consequences aside, that's not a decision he has the right to make.
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