[Newspoetry] Open Letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, as part of CommonCause's current campaign

[DL Emerick]

I strongly urge you to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bush
Administration abuses of power.

I was encouraged to read that you are considering a prosecutor to look into
questions around torture and other so-called enhanced interrogation tactics.
However, this action does not go far enough.

There have been too many questions, allegations and reports of misconduct
involving Bush Administration officials on issues ranging from torture to
secret CIA dealings to abuse of executive privilege and much more.   A
special prosecutor must be immediately appointed and given the authority to
investigate all of these areas.

Continued secrecy and indifference to prior transgressions will do lasting
damage to the very fabric of our democracy.

Thank you.

PS:  The face of evil looks like the face of any other man, for all of us
are capable of yielding to the wiles of evil.  It is for that reason always
that good men judge others, not by their ever pronounced alleged good
intentions, but solely by their actions -- as to whether the acts themselves
are good or evil.  In law we add the requirements of justice, that the acts
themselves be not only contrary to nature but also violate the rule of our
established positive laws.

In the matter of Cheney and sundry other members of the Bush administration,
the circumstantial evidence of news reports, backed by various testimonies
and documents, points clearly to an inference that grave and serious
offenses against the law have been committed, and always in the alleged name
of the State and its hypothetical "security" interests.  Our Founders well
knew that tyrants and despots always hide behind such masks.  They expected
such men would appear from time to time in America, and provided
constitutionally for their prosecution and possible conviction.

You now hold a high office, Secretary Holder.  It is your sad, but solemn
duty to see that America does not fail, in this immense duty to which they
pledged themselves as have we, their posterity.  The great duty of your
office, Mr. Secretary, now compels you, morally and legally and even
humanly, to initiate criminal proceedings against a large and quite definite
number of persons in the previous administration.

Any other course of action simply exposes America to the perils of such dire
and fearful precedents, as established exceptions to the Rule of Law --
exceptions that wholly devour the virtue of any Republic when allowed to
persist.

Please, Mr. Secretary, do what honor and office command you to do --
regardless of the political prices we shall pay as a nation, domestically or
internationally, for pursuing Justice, when it has apparently been so rankly
offended.