In pursuit of truth and lessons

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/09/EDKQ16ALKU.DTL


In pursuit of truth and lessons

Monday, March 9, 2009


Last week, the file cabinets at the Department of Justice rolled open. Out came the most brazen thinking imaginable: In the weeks after the 9/11 attacks, ultra-con lawyers said the military could blow up apartment buildings, eavesdrop on anyone and even suspend freedom of the press. All in the name of the war on terror.

It may all sound like more of the same, another collection of the Bush-Cheney greatest hits as the White House inner circle dreamed up ways to counter the attacks. But it's also the latest exhibit in the case for a "truth commission" that Congress is considering to investigate the Bush era.

There are reasons to worry about the notion. It could become a partisan piñata that Democrats exploit for attention and Republicans smack as a useless diversion. It could end up producing a political meltdown instead of fresh take on modern history.

Or it could elucidate how this nation went from the Bill of Rights to an anti-terrorist mind set that fostered warrantless wiretaps, foreign prisons, torture and radical notions of unfettered presidential war powers.

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There is any number of directions the commission idea could head. There could be a independent or special prosecutor, a joint panel within Congress or a blue-ribbon commission of elders. The powers could be carefully drawn to make sure it has access to all the necessary records and inside players.

This design work is exactly where the commission will make or break itself. Leahy needs to produce a specific plan soon. For now he's more interested in taking Washington's temperature.

Properly drawn, a commission could go a long way in explaining and understanding the policies that brought discredit on this country. It's time to pursue the truth.