A Matter of Justice

Barack Obama hit many grace notes in his race for the presidency. But one statement he made on the eve of his inaugural sounded off-key to Americans who have embraced the president's campaign trail promise that he would give the nation "a president who has taught the Constitution and believes in the Constitution and will obey the Constitution of the United States of America."

It is respect for the Constitution--not partisanship or personal dislike of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their acolytes--that has led to calls for accountability, in which the high crimes and misdemeanors of the former administration are assessed and addressed. Yet when pressed on the issue by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Obama again returned to the theme that "my orientation's going to be to move forward." Asked whether he would support the appointment of a special prosecutor to "independently investigate the greatest crimes of the Bush administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping," Obama replied that "my general belief is that when it comes to national security, what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future, as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past."

A few days later, at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Eric Holder, Obama's nominee for attorney general, responded to a similar question by saying, "No one is above the law.... We will follow the evidence, the facts, the law, and let that take us where it should, but I think President-elect Obama has said it well. We don't want to criminalize policy differences that might exist." The problem with Obama's statement, and even more so with Holder's, is that it dismisses legitimate demands for accountability as mere partisan or ideological maneuvers that will detract from the serious business at hand for a new administration.

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