BartBlog

 Critics of President Bush expecting that he would issue pardons to his staff for any possible war crimes, underestimated the devious cunning of his advisers.  Not issuing the pardons may have been their greatest stroke of genius because it provides President Obama with a loose-loose decision.

If President Obama initiates a war crimes investigation, the conservative talk show hosts will unleash a propaganda counter-attack that will be a relentless stream of vitriol that will question Obama’s reasoning, sanity, and patriotism.  The attempts to formulate a program of change will become deadlocked in a debate about the need for any war crimes trials.

The Republicans will use the “innocent until proved guilty” dodge to sabotage every step of the investigation process.  (Note:  by that criteria, Hitler can not be considered a war criminal.)

If President Obama does not conduct a war crimes investigation, then the Republicans can claim that it constitutes a <I>de facto</I> “not guilty” verdict and closes the topic forever.

Imagine that Hitler didn’t commit suicide and that after the Allied victory, Hitler avoided being indicted for war crimes.  Wouldn’t his supporters have claimed that the fact he wasn’t put on trial meant that there wasn’t enough evidence for a conviction? 

Was there any chance that Hitler would have been given a pass due to good-sportsmanship?

If President Obama wants to form a consensus majority, he has to avoid a divisive trial.

If he advocates “forgive and forget,” then eventually the Republicans can use the fact that no trial was held as the basis for saying “if there were any war crimes, then Obama became an accessory after the fact by not holding any investigations.”  At that point the Obama administration will want to avoid any discussions about the possibility that war crimes may have been committed during Bush’s term in office.

Forgoing any Christmas pardons for the advisers who delivered the “weapons of mass destruction” rational for going to war, was clever raised to the third power.

President Bush didn’t issue any pardons and now the next move is up to President elect Obama because any pardons would have been seen as avoiding punishment for some wrong that had been committed.  Without pardons to denounce and decry, the next move is up to President Obama and he has other more important issues needing immediate attention.

So who do you think will win this year’s Best Motion Picture Oscar

Ned Kelly said:  “Such is life.”

Now, the disk jockey will play AC/DC’s song “Highway to Hell” and we will scram.  Have a “no harm, no foul” type week.