The White House Papers
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/opinion/24THU1.html?pagewanted=print&position=If the White House thought the documents it doled out this week would put to rest the concern that the brutal behavior of American soldiers in Iraqi prisons had been sanctioned from above, it was wrong. While Mr. Bush's 2002 memo does not condone torture, it opens loopholes in the treatment of prisoners that the military could drive a Hummer through — and some clearly did.
The document dump only reaffirms the need for a more robust Congressional response to this mess. The record is no straighter now than it was last week. It is time for Republican leaders in Congress to back up Senator John Warner, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and either compel full disclosure by the administration or create a new panel with subpoena powers.
This partial view of the thinking of the administration on the prisoner issue did provide, once again, confirmation of how this president and his team consider themselves above the rules that bind ordinary mortals. From the start of his presidency, Mr. Bush has resisted scrutiny and regulation, taking the position that the public should recognize that his people are good people with good intentions, and trust them to do the right thing.
The nation, of course, has always held to a different tradition that relies on the restraint of the rule of law rather than individual goodness. The debacle at Abu Ghraib shows how badly things can go when average Americans are let loose from those restraints, or allowed to believe that such restraints do not apply to them. The political and moral disasters of this administration, from the current dreadful state of American prestige abroad to the injustices perpetrated on innocent Americans erroneously suspected of terrorist ties, show that the same thing applies to the people at the top.
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