I don’t suppose there are a lot of people who are happier than I am with Barack Obama being our president.  Some of the progressives and liberals who have become unhappy with him since his inauguration weren’t, in my opinion, really listening to him during the campaign, when he said he was going to approach solutions in a bipartisan way.  When he falls short of the strict liberal or progressive solution, those who heard only what they wanted to hear during the campaign start crying foul.

None of that is much of a surprise, people being people.  And as much of a progressive/liberal as I am, and however much I would personally prefer a more progressive/liberal solution to a particular problem, I know that’s not an effective way to go about change.  That’s the way to go only if one wants to generate backlash.  So, even though I wish, on the one hand, to see more progressive and liberal moves coming out of the White House, I accept, on the other, the necessity for proceeding a little less bombastically.

Having been clear, I hope, in presenting my progressive/liberal credentials, I’ll say that for some things there simply is no middle road.  Transparency and accountability are among those things. 

President Obama has so far signaled, if not outright opposition, at least considerable foot-dragging when it comes to undoing some of what can be undone of Bush’s legacy, and pursuing accountability for Bushies who may have committed crimes.

We’ve been here before, and the failure to pursue accountability in the past was very much a part of opening us up to the abuses of Bush et al.  I’ll refer again to another old column of Dad’s (aka Kays Gary), written after President Ford pardoned President Nixon.  Read the whole column to see just how prophetic Dad was.  Indeed, I dare say Papa came in a little short on just how bad the next round would be.   He worried that there would be “a resurrection of the politics of pious infidels,”  and sure enough, that’s just what we got.  But I don’t think he would ever have imagined the scope and sheer volume of high crimes and misdemeanors that the Bush years would bury us under.

Some articles currently on Huffington Post are germane to this issue. It will be important to hold Obama’s feet to the fire, and Congressional Democrats’ as well.

First is the matter of Karl Rove having been subpoenaed to testify before Congress.  There is talk of offering him immunity if he testifies.

In the first place, this puts me at odds with my good senator from Vermont, Patrick Leahy.  Senator Leahy has proposed a Congressional truth commission that would grant immunity from prosecution to anyone from the Bush administration who testifies freely to Congress.  I agree with most of the points the Senator makes; and while I see the benefits of setting up a structure that will elicit truth rather than blanket non-cooperation, there are some higher-level people whom I think should not have an opportunity to slip-slide their way out of accountability. Karl Rove is one of them.

In the second place, people who have been substantively injured by Rove’s actions deserve to see him held to account.  Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman is one of those people (HuffPo article here).  I feel some kinship with Gov. Siegelman, given my experience with Vermont bureaucracy (road map here), but he had the far worse of it, going to prison.  If, as Gov. Siegelman maintains (and I believe), he went to prison for things he never did, why then should the man who put him there get immunity from prosecution?  And how can Obama claim to be reinstituting the rule of law if that happens?

If we do not solidly ground ourselves in the rule of law now, after Bush, the next time the “pious infidels” take over, in another couple of generations or so, I doubt we could hold a long reign of fascism at bay.

Peace.  And accountability.

Deborah Alicen