When it comes to the White House and the ongoing — and ever escalating — torture scandals, it’s hard not to feel like we’re stuck in some twisted Twilight Zone episode. The tolerance Bush has shown for these crimes seems to know no bounds. No one’s been fired; no independent investigations have been launched; no public displays outrage have been shared.
And many of those responsible keep receiving promotion offers.
Following up for a moment on an earlier post, it’s awful that Bush is intent on stacking the federal bench with far-right ideologues, but it’s even worse when one considers what some of these ideologues have done.
Among the candidates the president said on Thursday he would renominate is William J. Haynes IV, the Pentagon’s general counsel, who has been deeply embroiled in controversy over memorandums he wrote or supervised that secretly authorized harsh treatment, even torture, for detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq. Mr. Haynes’s nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond, Va., was suspended when the issue erupted and he was asked by the Judiciary Committee to provide material about his role in the issue and failed to do so.
Since then, the scandal has worsened, we’ve seen more disgusting and widespread examples of abuse of detainees, and we’ve learned that Haynes personally wrote some of the administration memoranda that cleared the way for torture in the first place.
And how does Bush respond? By insisting that Haynes be confirmed to a lifetime position on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, one step shy of the Supreme Court.
It’s bad enough that Bush remains scandalously quiet about the reports of widespread torture and hides information about the abuses, but does the president, who fancies himself a righteous individual, really need to keep promoting those who bear responsibility for the crimes?
Haynes’ positions on these issues leave little room for ambiguity.
In [his capacity as general counsel for the Department of Defense] he has developed and defended three of the administration’s most controversial policies: the refusal to treat any of the hundreds of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions of 1949; the department’s military tribunal plan for trying suspected war criminals; and even the incarceration of U.S. citizens without counsel or judicial review.
The administration claims inherent authority to do all this. Not until December, when the Supreme Court was about to decide whether to review this harsh and unacceptable policy, did the administration grudgingly concede that its authority to detain these citizens indefinitely and without access to counsel is limited in any way.
Haynes is the perfect embodiment for the president’s perspective on the rule of law. No wonder Bush wants him on the 4th Circuit.
This is about as bad as a judicial nominee can possibly be. Dems should not only filibuster this nomination, they should brag about it — and highlight just how warped the administration’s sense of justice has become.