Bush would look good in prison

(Steve Benson)

I'm still very unhappy that there's no special prosecutor looking into the crimes of the Bush administration, so it does me good to see our former President scared to set foot out of the country.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

A planned trip by former President George W. Bush to Switzerland this week has been canceled in the face of threatened large-scale protests and calls for an investigation into whether his administration committed human rights abuses in the fight against terrorism. ...

While Mr. Bush does not face any legal sanctions in Switzerland, this is not the first time that officials from his administration have faced the threat of legal action in Europe for involvement in possible human rights abuses in the war on terror.

Prosecutors and judges in several European countries, notably Spain and Germany, have in the past proved willing to pursue long-shot international legal cases against foreign leaders based on war crimes evidence, and in recent years some of them have turned their attention toward Bush administration officials.

OK, this was abused during the Clinton years when Republicans appointed a political enemy of the President to go fishing for dirt (without, I might remind you, finding any). But when you whitewash torture - or even just deliberate violations of the Hatch Act - you make these things far more likely to happen again.

And really, the Democrats might have been gracious enough - or cowardly enough - to let Republican crimes go unpunished and even un-investigated, but do you really think Republicans would do the same? Ha! Just as soon as they get the power, they'll be launching one witch hunt after another.

As I say, just because that's wrong doesn't mean that criminal activity should be ignored. I mean, come on, people! We're talking about torturing prisoners of war! We've considered water-boarding to be a war crime for more than a century. This isn't even a close call!

Oh, well, that's over and done, I know. I guess I need to move on. But hey, at least these people are scared to leave the country. That's something - not much, but something. And it does feel good.