Republican RICO-Style Abuse of Power

[kpete]

Republican RICO-Style Abuse of Power

By Stephen Crockett
March 21, 2007


Editor's Note: George W. Bush is rejecting Democratic calls for sworn testimony by his White House inner circle about the unusual firings of eight U.S. Attorneys who were viewed as not "loyal Bushies," according to one Justice Department e-mail. But what might the Democrats find if the officials did testify openly and under oath?

In this guest essay, Democratic Talk Radio co-host Stephen Crockett suggests that underlying Bush's resistance to a full investigation is evidence of longstanding criminality that borders on racketeering:

There is nothing as corrupt as using the governmental powers of law enforcement, to selectively prosecute your political enemies and to cover-up criminal behavior by your political organization and allies, while in a position of political power. This situation is the essence of the current scandal concerning the firing of U.S. Attorneys by the Bush White House.

The Watergate scandal should have taught the Republican Party that this kind of abuse is outside the bounds of acceptable political behavior in American society. Republican activists failed to learn the lessons of Watergate and are now reliving history on issue after issue.

.............

Unless the Republicans can purge their Party of this criminal tendency to abuse public office and government power for political ends, then Republicans at every level should be voted out of power. Public investigations and investigative journalism should be focused on abuses of office by those in power.

The Republican Party is starting to look like a potential target for a RICO indictment as a profit-making, criminal conspiracy. Their political traditions should be based on American political figures like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt instead of Richard Nixon, Dick Cheney and Tom Delay.

more at:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/032007a.html