Outrageous Fortune

The outrage from the Right over President Obama's actions at the recent meeting of American nations is just another example of the ridiculous nature of political debate. The manufactured outrage over President Obama accepting a book from Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and his attendance at a speech by the Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, proves once again that the Republicans have no interest in a grown up debate about the direction of the country. Republican Presidents have a history of meeting with opposition leaders. Nixon met with Mao and Brezhnev when he was President. Regan most famously met with Gorbachev during his two terms. There was no outrage from the Right then. Nixon even presented Brezhnev with a car, even though the USSR had recently invaded one of their eastern European satellites.

I wonder where that outrage was when the President decided that our rule of law did not apply to him. Where was the outrage over the continued abuse of prisoners and the wanton destruction of our Constitutional freedoms. The right was entirely silent while George W. Bush willingly broke the laws of the land. They are also surprising quiet as our current President seeks to pardon those activities. The Right is more than willing to harp about a handshake, but ignoring previous illegal activity apparently meets with their approval.

There can now be no doubt that our government initiated and maintained an illegal torture program along with an illegal electronic wiretapping program. Those are unequivocally impeachable offenses. Those on the right were not outraged by these activities but are up in arms over the fact that President has released the Justice Department memos outlining the torture program. They don't care that prisoners were tortured in the name of all Americans, they only care that now everyone knows it. They didn't even bat an eye when the Vice President proudly proclaimed that we had indeed tortured prisoners.

The same Republicans who were willing to submit this country to the most expensive trial in history in order to try and embarrass a Democratic President, are now unwilling to hold one of their own liable for the highest of crimes. The impeachment trial of President Clinton was was based on what should have been a private matter. The acts that President Clinton committed, while being immoral, did not affect society as a whole and certainly had no impact on the Constitution. George W. Bush not only thumbed his nose at the rule of law in this country, but at the rights of every citizen. For those illegal activities, the Right would have us forgive and forget. Our current President seems to be of the same mind. Perhaps he is trying to curry some political favor with the Republicans in order to get some bipartisan support for his policies. If that is the reason, he should know better. Both the recent and historical actions of the Republicans have shown that this will try at every turn to foil the actions of this President.