'/> Uncommon Hours: Olbermann: Bush guilty of torture
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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Olbermann: Bush guilty of torture

It seems an appropriate moment to bring this up this morning, as the Supreme Court justices file into their places for today's inauguration ceremony.

Keith Olbermann offered an excellent perspective last evening on why President-elect Obama should prosecute Bush and others in his administration for war crimes, in particular for torturing prisoners: the precedents for compromise or allowing criminal actions to pass quietly into history have not ended well.

"Sadly," Olbermann said, "as commendable as the intention here might seem, this country has never succeeded in 'moving forward' without first cleansing itself of its mistaken past. In point of fact, every effort to merely ‘draw a line in the sand' and declare the past, dead, has served only to keep the past alive—and often to strengthen it."

The text and video are available here.