Why Bygones Can't be Bygones

Contents

In 2009 we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the man whom many consider our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. But even greatness can make mistakes. When Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, the Supreme Court of 1866 issued a strong rebuke, lecturing all future commanders in chief that "when peace prevails [...] there is no difficulty in preserving the safeguards of liberty." During war or crisis, the challenge is greater.

Public mistakes deserve public correction. That truth lies at the heart of democracy. So it is depressing that so few members of both major political parties are willing to risk a comprehensive public investigation of illegal acts by the Bush administration surrounding its alleged abuse of power. There is plenty of blame to go around. Republicans and Democrats have a shared role in permitting these acts to go unchallenged. In fact, the public deserves its share of the blame for tolerating these outrageous actions in the name of "national security."

Fear fueled the post-9/11 lawbreaking of government, and fear will fuel it again if we are not fortified against a future abandonment of our laws with every new threat. We have to be able to count on democracy in the midst of our fears, when peace does not prevail. Investigating the past will help us learn to do that.

The first thing to do, however, is debunk the most common myths supporting clemency for the Bush administration's abuse of power. Here are the popular arguments for letting "bygones by bygones."

1. "Get on with the future. The past is over." If we said that about "ordinary decent criminals" (as the Irish call them), lawbreakers would never appear in court. We may wish to forget the past, but it stays with us. What this government did to imprison 120,00 Japanese Americans in 1942 haunted us until we finally came to terms with it through public acknowledgment in the 1970s and 1980s. It is to the honor of the United States that we dealt at last with this injustice.

2. "We can't afford a divisive debate over national security." If we respect the Bill of Rights, we must find away to afford it. A debate should be held in the name of what we mean to secure: a society that respects individual rights. We should be suspicious of any appeal to unity that endangers freedom.

3. "Let the courts do the job." Courts can do only part of the job. They are slow critics of policies that could still do damage to our country. Even the Supreme Court of 1866 waited until after Lincoln's death to nail his assault on habeas corpus.

Let us leave to leaders who remember the sobriety of the Watergate hearings to decide the exact form and extent of an investigation into the previous administration. But there can be no doubt that we owe to our immediate future an honest accounting of the flaws in our recent past.

Donald W. Shriver, Jr. is president emeritus of Union Theological Seminary in New York and author of Honest Patriots: Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds. Bob Edgar is president and CEO of Common Cause and author of Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right.