Bugliosi And Others: A Round Up and Reminder of What We’re Dealing With and What We Need To Do.

“Bush is the one who lied, but we are all responsible for believing the lie and not holding him accountable. Until that day comes, we must all bear the burden of that sin.”

And what are we doing? Well, we’re outraged, angry, and not shy about expressing it. But what about concrete pursuit of justice and demanding accountability for the high crimes committed? Are we really letting the bad guys get away with it?

If Nancy Pelosi’s comments about impeachment are any indication, we can expect a lot of finger-wagging, subpoenas that go nowhere, and empty threats for many more months, while the Bush/Cheney Axis of Evil winds down into ever more blatant examples of corruption, cronyism, and utter disrespect for our country and its laws.

And why shouldn’t they? We’re an empire now, made of subjects and lords, and the subjects’ lot in life is just to shut up, take it, and not beg for more. We’ve lost sight of the cost of liberty, because we’re afraid, apathetic, and feel powerless. And they’re Rollo Tomasi–the guy who gets away with it.

And we’re letting them do it.

On the other hand Vincent Bugliosi has a solution: the proper legal solution presented here in as complete a presentation as I can muster and muscle into a reasonable space.

Impeachment? Truth and reconciliation commission? Never mind that — haul George Bush into a court of law, part 1

Today we visit Vincent Bugliosi’s book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. Tomorrow we visit Vincent Bugliosi himself as he talks about his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee appearance and his book.

As you may have heard by now, the mainstream media has been giving Vincent Bugliosi’s latest book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, the cold shoulder. Never mind that he authored what was, at the time, the bestselling crime book in history, Helter Skelter, about his successful prosecution of the Manson family. Nor that he’s written numerous bestsellers since. His 2007 book, Reclaiming History, a 1,600-page attempt to dispel alternative histories of the Kennedy assassination, is being made into a mini-series by HBO and Tom Hanks.

In the only mainstream media article addressing The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder and its reception, New York Times reporter Tim Arango writes: “The editor of Newsweek, Jon Meacham, said he had not read the manuscript, but he offered a reason why the media might be silent: ‘I think there’s a kind of Bush-bashing fatigue out there.’”

The main reason though may be Bugliosi’s agenda: Impeach Bush? Convene a truth and reconciliation commission for him and his gang? Forget all that. Once Bush is out of office, let’s drag his butt into a court of law. But the media’s perception that much of the public can’t conceive of prosecuting a president in a court of law is probably accurate.

Most Americans are too invested in whatever remains of the myth of the presidency and fear that a trial would subvert a president’s authority. Besides, as Bugliosi himself said in an interview with the Nation, “Americans just can’t believe an American President would engage in conduct that smacks of such criminality, and thus the whole notion of taking the President to court for murder is a revolutionary one.”

Myth-busting aside, and however out of fashion Bush-bashing may be, Bugliosi summons up a depth and breadth of rage that shames those of us who have been reduced to ennui and cynicism by the Bush years. You’d never know that not only is he 73 years old but still on the rebound from the monumental task of researching and writing his Kennedy tome.

For instance, he has no compunctions about pulling the rug out from under soldiers’ rationalization of last resort –- that they fight over there to keep from fighting here. To Bugliosi the question isn’t why but who. He writes: “If you say our young men didn’t die for Bush, Cheney, and Rove, then whom did they die for?”

Nor does he pull any punches on Bush’s character. “What I strongly believe (without absolutely knowing) is that this man has no respect or love for this country.” What makes him think that?

For starters, Bush put our young people in harm’s way for no good reason, avoided the draft when young himself, and experiences no apparent concern for the carnage in Iraq. Furthermore, he spends much of his time in Crawford, neglects to read reports, and is guilty of blatant cronyism. What really sticks in Bugliosi’s craw is the cheerfulness and insouciance that Bush exhibits in a time of war.

For instance, Bugliosi cites an August 2005 day Bush spent in Crawford in the midst of a two-week period during which 42 Americans were killed. With Bush’s only work-related activity lunch with Condoleezza Rice, he called it a “perfect day.” Bugliosi writes: “I don’t know about you, but if I ever killed just one person, even accidentally, like in a car accident, I’d never have another perfect day as long as I lived.”

At one point Bugliosi even declares: “Bush is a grotesque anomaly and aberration.” If, even in the service of rallying us to prevail upon the Justice Department to bring charges, such exclamations seem over the top, look at this way. The least we could do is allow Bugliosi to vent since much of this book is essentially a turnkey project for a federal attorney to start the ignition on the prosecution of Bush and put it in gear.

A crime is an act that’s not only prohibited, but accompanied by criminal intent. In the case of murder, this is known as malice aforethought, which comes in two varieties. The first is express malice — the specific intent to kill. In the second, implied malice, the intent is not to kill but to commit a dangerous act with wanton disregard for the consequences as well as an indifference to human life.

Bush, Bugliosi writes, not only fulfilled the second requirement, implied malice, but he started the Iraq War “without any lawful excuse of justification.”

Bush’s defense would be self-defense –- that he needed to carry out a preemptive strike on Saddam. But lying that Saddam possessed WMD and conspired with al Qaeda to commit 9/11 shows that Bush wasn’t acting in self-defense, but, instead, in a criminal state of mind. Hence, every American killed as a result of his actions are murders on Bush’s part.

In most states implied malice is second-degree murder. But, Bugliosi writes, “Bush’s alleged crime is. . . on such a grand scale that it would greatly dishonor those. . . who paid the ultimate price because of it if he were not to pay the ultimate penalty.”

In the interest of prosecuting Bush for first-degree murder, Bugliosi writes that a “very credible argument could be made that in a real sense he did intend to have American soldiers killed in his war.”

Say what?

Bugliosi explains. A typical example of implied malice is a high-speed chase though a school zone, in which “not only didn’t the defendant intend to kill, but he had no way of knowing whether someone would die or not. [But] while Bush never specifically intended to kill any American soldier, he absolutely knew American soldiers would necessarily die in his war.” (Italics are Bulgiosi’s.)

He continues. “Therefore, a case could be made that unless Bush intended to have a war without any casualties, which is. . . an argument that would make Bush sound absurd. . . he did, in fact, specifically intend to have American soldiers killed.”

In other words, as everyone knows, in war, casualties come with the territory. If the “natural tendency” of an act is to take another’s life, the law can’t help but conclude that was intentional.

As for his chances of success, “. . . as a former prosecutor with twenty-one murder convictions without a loss. . . I am probably in a better position than the average person to know what type of evidence is necessary to go to trial with.” If he’s rusty, he sure doesn’t sound like it. In fact, he’s begun to arouse the interest of current prosecutors.

Much of the rest of The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder is given over to cataloging Bush’s crimes. Bugliosi brings some to our attention that have gone unnoticed by many of us. For example, who remembers Hans Blix, UN weapons inspector, stating before the invasion that Iraq’s cooperation in the inspections, “can be seen as active, even proactive”?

Impeachment? Truth and reconciliation commission? No, haul George Bush into a court of law, part 2

Impeachment? Truth and reconciliation commission? Never mind that — haul George Bush into a court of law, part 3

Impeachment? Truth and reconciliation commission? Never mind that — haul George Bush into a court of law, part 4

The 935 lies of George W. Bush (and friends)

The study also holds the media culpable for their role in cheerleading the march to war without even the slightest desire to dig deeper into the claims and propaganda:

Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, “independent” validation of the Bush administration’s false statements about Iraq.

Again, this is no surprise. The media knew Bush’s true goals were oil and empire, and did their part to keep the public somnolent and thirsting for blood simultaneously. But I disagree with my friend Joe over at CenterBlue when he says:

This all has bearing on the current presidential election going on, as people try to sling mud at some candidate or other (Hillary, Edwards, etc.) over their having initially voted for the war. Well excuse me, but if I had been subjected to a relentless months-long misinformation campaign emanating from the president himself over the certainty of WMD’s and terrorism in Iraq I probably would have voted the same way. In fact I supported the war to begin with, having been played for a fool just like everyone else. This is why I consider these votes to be non-issues and pin the blame fully and squarely on Bush.

But not all of us fell for that. It’s something that a child could see–why attack Iraq when bin Laden was in Afghanistan?

People chose not to see the truth. They willingly blinded themselves to the obvious in order to remain favorable in the court of public opinion. Clinton and Edwards went along with the herd in order to look tough (and Clinton continues to do so today, even as Edwards has renounced his vote). Everyone who bought into the hype and supported this damnable false war must be held accountable and forced to bear the weight of their failure to question.

But they won’t be, of course. Bush continues to lie to this very day, and while Clinton’s lies about getting a blowjob nearly tore this country apart, Bush, like Rollo Tomasi, is the guy who gets away with it. And we are left with the burden of a costly, brutal, bloody, and useless war that has killed thousands, cost trillions, and turned our country into a pariah on the global stage.

Bush is the one who lied, but we are all responsible for believing the lie and not holding him accountable. Until that day comes, we must all bear the burden of that sin.

False Pretenses : Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose "Duelfer Report" established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq's nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003. Not surprisingly, the officials with the most opportunities to make speeches, grant media interviews, and otherwise frame the public debate also made the most false statements, according to this first-ever analysis of the entire body of prewar rhetoric.

President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).

The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.

Consider, for example, these false public statements made in the run-up to war: (More)

Rollo Tomasi and the Age of Empire

Surely these are not new ideas–politics being used to reward allies and punish foes is as old as the process itself. And this sort of blatant favoritism was all the rage in the days of the Tudors, for instance. But America, for all our supposed cynicism and apathy, is a deeply naive, innocent nation. We want to believe in the dream of working hard, being treated fairly, and earning our success. We also believe that the bad guys get caught and will go to jail if they break the law.

There is a sizeable population in America that just does not, cannot wrap their head around the fact that the President may be a Bad Man who does Bad Things. He’s President of America. We’re Americans. We’re the good guys. Remember, the Nixon mythos in America is that the system worked. “See, in America, even the President is not above the law.”

These Suited Bastards know the fragile shell of American exceptionalism is all that’s keeping a whole lot of people from processing that they’re working too many hours for not enough money, and they either believe real reeaaaalll hard that they’re living in the Shining City on the Hill or admit their lives are shit and they’ve been chumped.

These past seven years have been a watershed in teaching Americans what much of the world has known for many years–that rulers, more often than not, simply Do Not Care What You Think. They will punish their enemies, reward their friends, enjoy the privileges of power, and ignore or openly spit on the masses—and the masses will take it, because they’re afraid, apathetic, or buy into the lies to keep themselves convinced that the status quo is better than the alternative. And Bush is especially egregious in this regard–a lifetime of ignorant, childish defiance mixed with insecure bluster and coddling privilege–the ultimate Daddy’s boy who wanted to replace his dad–has bred a man who will break any law, violate any rule, and care nothing for the consequences. Just because he can.

And what are we doing? Well, we’re outraged, angry, and not shy about expressing it. But what about concrete pursuit of justice and demanding accountability for the high crimes committed? Are we really letting the bad guys get away with it?

If Nancy Pelosi’s comments about impeachment are any indication, we can expect a lot of finger-wagging, subpoenas that go nowhere, and empty threats for many more months, while the Bush/Cheney Axis of Evil winds down into ever more blatant examples of corruption, cronyism, and utter disrespect for our country and its laws.

And why shouldn’t they? We’re an empire now, made of subjects and lords, and the subjects’ lot in life is just to shut up, take it, and not beg for more. We’ve lost sight of the cost of liberty, because we’re afraid, apathetic, and feel powerless. And they’re Rollo Tomasi–the guy who gets away with it.

And we’re letting them do it.