By definition political officials can break no law because if there are no criminal penalities there is no crime and there is no law broken.

Mr. Greenwald, I fail to see how you can have a problem with that. You should spend more time in Wahsington and your way of thinking may improve.

The Washington Post has always been like that.

In fact, I would argue that the threat of punishment is much more of a deterrent for these types of crimes than it is for crimes that are often the result of poverty, passion, and need (as murder and thievery often are). People at the top who abuse their power and ignore the rule of law really, really, really don't want to end up in prison. So, if there is a real threat of punishment, there might actually be a deterrent effect. We should try it sometime.

I'd be working really hard on putting myself into the position of personally asking this question of these assh*les face to face. For all our sakes, I hope you're trying to get back on the teevee to confront some of these nitwits.

From the Robinson and Darley quote:

a penalty-setting system that assigns criminal punishments of a magnitude sufficient to deter a thinking individual from committing a crime

I'm pretty sure that in the Bush Administration, there were very few, if any, "thinking individuals". However, since we are talking about deterrence for future administrations, the bulk of the argument stands. Let's punish these cretins and make them examples for whoever comes next, whether it is the 44th or the 64th president.

when they break the law, how and why does anyone imagine that we can ensure this "never happens again," especially as we simultaneously affirm -- yet again -- that political leaders will be exempted from the rule of law if they do it? What's the answer to that?-- Glenn Greenwald

Welcome to jury nullification on a national level. Sometimes the law gets overruled.

Severity of punishment is only one factor in the law's ability to deter criminality, and arguably the least powerful factor.

Despite the severest penalties, people still commit the most heinous crimes because they don't believe they will be caught.

It is sure and swift punishment that deters crime.

As it stands, the Constitutional criminals in the Bush administration had good reason to believe they'd never be caught. Or, if caught, punishment would be far from sure or swift. They'd be able to beat the rap, or run out the clock or, as a last resort, get a presidential pardon.

The Bushies exhibit every attitude of the depraved career criminal. Smug in their ability to circumvent the law, they rely on a jury of the Village media suckers to exonerate them, one and all.

The entire corrupt process is more akin to the law in a tinpot dictatorship than the legal system of a modern democratic republic.

Welcome to jury nullification on a national level.

I don't recall any jury nullifying any law with respect to the individuals and the crimes we are discussing here.

Do you have a link to such a jury nullification?

Severity of punishment is only one factor in the law's ability to deter criminality, and arguably the least powerful factor.

Despite the severest penalties, people still commit the most heinous crimes because they don't believe they will be caught.

It is sure and swift punishment that deters crime.

This is my understanding also, severity of punishment takes a back seat to swiftness and surety when it comes to deterring criminal behavior.

...' um "never allow WHAT to happen again"...

I know I not attack with electron sky bagels.

I love jam with cream cheese. huh. Poor Felt.

Whenever, many a day, my old war wounds?

Then a toe hurts. I felt awful.

If I yank sock off a toe stinks!

This is another stooped, ugh.

"ensure it never happens again"

Great post as usual Glenn, but honestly going after the intellectual musings of Ruth Marcus isn't much of a sport for anybody with an intelligence greater than that of a 10 year old.

that all the little bushies are poor people of colour who've been caught with an ounce of dope on them, or maybe some poor schleb in Kabul who cooked at a Taliban camp, or maybe an olympic track athlete who got caught using roids...yeah, yeah, that's the ticket!!

AND OUR INTENTIONS ARE ABOVE REPROACH. OR Examination. Move on.

Alternatively,

"Our Lawyers said that whatever we were doing was legal. Only a few bad apples that didn't follow the SOP's and authorized 'enhanced techniques' need to be sanctioned." I think this is the defense the junta is relying on, and will offer up a few sacrificial sadistic dull-normals and morons. Backstopped of course by blanket pardons for everyone else.

Meanwhile the junta continues to arrest over 800,000 harmless potheads per year.

Can anyone, even the magic negro, unwind the Amerikan prison machine?

Can anyone, even the TV-brainwashed jingoists, believe that the Justice Department has other than an Orwellian association with "justice"?

Respect for the LAW is what sustains a democracy. When those charged with maintaining the LAW respect only power, all lose respect for the LAW. When the LAW is a ass, the free man must act or lose all dignity.

but honestly going after the intellectual musings of Ruth Marcus isn't much of a sport for anybody with an intelligence greater than that of a 10 year old.

People say things like this a lot: oh, he's not worth the time and effort. I'd love to see the list of the people who are worth the time and effort. I think there's be great difficulty agreeing to such a list.

But more to the point: as is virtually always true when I write about someone's argument, Marcus herself is not the point. It's almost never the case that one person matters enough to point out why they're wrong. Marcus' argument isn't interesting or worthwhile to me because she's important enough to make it matter what she thinks.

It's worth dissecting because, as I said, it's the commonly held view in Washington and beyond that's being used to justify immunity for Bush officials. Her argument is worth looking at precisely because she is by no means the only person making it. It's the prevailing view. She just happened to express it in a way that, with particular clarity, highlighted the central flaw.