From Mary Matalin’s appearance on Meet the Press, I learned the “Tale of Two Americas”:
In one America, with enough money and clout, you can shoot somebody, avoid the media and the police until everybody gets their stories straight and your blood alcohol has gone down low enough to be legal, you can dictate the official account as “an unfortunate accident” to the authorities, have the case closed with no penalties, and get on with your life without ever having to leave the comfort of Air Force Two.
In the other America, you can have your home, your records, your life invaded by police agencies (both government and privatized), be secretly investigated without any crime having been committed (by anyone, much less you) and without your knowledge. You can be under investigation for no reason other than somebody is curious about you, has a hunch that you might have done something, or be up to something. Something that isn’t even illegal. Yet. You can be picked up anywhere (in your home, on the street), taken into custody (kidnapped), denied a phone call, and denied access to legal counsel. You can be held indefinitely, secretly, without your family or a court, or anybody being informed about what is happening to you. You can be shipped to a prison in another country, blindfolded and in chains, to be tortured and killed. Never to be seen again.
For having done absolutely nothing.
In the first America, nothing illegal happened because “I, Cheney, said so.”
In the second America, nothing legal happens “until I, Cheney, say so.”
Filed under: Mary Matalin, Dick Cheney, Tim Russert
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