Are we to take from Meacham's screed the principle that the only "lesson" to be learned from the disclosure of President Nixon's involvement in the Watergate [criminal] cover-up, his resignation pending impeachment and the pardon granted him regarding criminal prosecution is that none of that ever happened?

Or is, instead, the lesson that as far as Meacham is concerned it never should have happened and things like holding the President subject to the law are verboten now?

"When the president does it that means it is not illegal"

It's even in the damn movie trailer!

As the citizen of a constitutional monarchy (Canada), I wish that you would stop giving monarchies a bad name by associating them with the torture and lawlessness going on in your republic. I think there is much greater unquestioning reverence of your elected head of state by U.S. citizens than there is of any hereditary royal head of state by the citizens of any other developed Western country.

Canada and the UK and many other countries did the sensible thing of reducing the power of our monarchical head of state to be a ceremonial figurehead and a last-resort non-partisan guardian of our rights and of a stable government, instead of replacing the monarch with an president who is elected but otherwise has the powers and many trappings of the early-18th Century kings which so offended Americans.

If you were the President and were tempted to break the law, what possible reason would you have to refrain from doing so, given your certain knowledge that (as long as the crime did not involve adult sex), you'd have the Jon Meachams and David Broders and the other decadent, monarch-worshiping establishment spokespeople to insist that you had the right to do so and nothing must be done when you're caught?

That the resident pervs would be OK w/ it if it were, you know, kiddie sex?

On Sunday I caught the Fareed Zacharia show because he sometimes goes against the grain of the MSM sunday talk fests--recently, he had a Congressman who actually disputed the idea of "the surge is working" and Zacharia also gave a platform to Freeman after his nomination was derailed. But yesterday, his panel for discussing the torture issue? Peggy Noonan, Jon Meacham and some other guy. When are these shows going to start reflecting the reality of who won the last two elections? When are we going to see people like Glenn giving their perspective on the Sunday talk shows? I'll send Zacharia an email but realistically, what can we do? Besides supporting the journalists we depend on? It's maddening...

I have a question: I work in a law firm and both the (very) Republican partner and the Democratic partner told me that Bybee, Yoo and Bradfield (?) cannot be prosecuted, that a lawyer can advise his client of anything and not be held responsible, even if the advice is to break the law. Can this possible be true? Does it make a difference that Bush, Cheney et al were not private clients but that the lawyers worked for us, the people (being Justice Department lawyers)...What about some kind of lawsuit on behalf of the People of the US? I'm so concerned that legal technicalities will mean people walk away from accountability on this ...One last thing--did I see that Obama and DOJ is trying to overturn the rule that police can't question someone without their lawyer being present even if they have asked for a lawyer? What's up with that?

As pointed out in the update, Evan Thomas jumps up to do his part to prop up the existing order. However, in the case of torture and accountability for it that simply means supporting tyranny. When the president and vice president are "above the law" in even some instances, as Meacham suggests, we have fallen directly into tyranny.

One more aspect of what is required in propping up this order and preventing prosecutions is pointed out very well in a January 25 Op-Ed John Kerry had at CNN.com. Kerry provided a very short observation that has a dual meaning. Kerry stated that "Torture elicits lies". He then went on to point out that the lies elicited by torture are both the lies coming from the victim of torture as they offer up anything to stop the suffering and the lies from the perpetrators of torture as they seek to cover it up.

It is not possible to prop up the existing order and to hold presidents and vice presidents above the law (most of the time, anyway) without spreading lies.

More on the Kerry op-ed and the contrast it provides to Michael Schearer's WaPoo op-ed from yesterday at my name.

If ordering the torture of prisoners isn't worthy of a criminal investigation of a president and VP, what would be? Would our leaders have to commit genocide before their actions would be deemed worthy of prosecution?

I work in a law firm and both the (very) Republican partner and the Democratic partner told me that Bybee, Yoo and Bradfield (?) cannot be prosecuted, that a lawyer can advise his client of anything and not be held responsible, even if the advice is to break the law.

Which state bar association allows its members to counsel their clients to break a criminal law and absolutely protects those members from subsequent legal repercussions?

The 13 colonies that later became the United States found King George III to be an intolerable tyrant. We rebelled and fought a bloody rebellion against George's England to win our own freedom.

Our elected President has far more power for the term of his office than old George had during his rein. And now they tell me that what little restraint there is on an American President no longer counts for anything. They say that if a President does it, then it is legal: even if it would be illegal for anyone else.

If the boys in George Washington's army could have seen the future and knew what we were to become, they could have laid down their arms and apologized to his royal highness.