George Bush- War Criminal in Chief

Keith Olbermann was in rare form tonight. Transcript here.

While I think the piece could be cut by a quarter to a third, it should come as no surprise to anyone that I think he is dead on the money.

George Bush and his henchmen ordered (not just authorized or permitted or winked at) the waterboarding of prisoners.

Waterboarding is torture.

Torture is a crime against humanity.

Therefore, George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, George Tenent, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, David Addington, I. Lewis Libby and God knows how many more members of the Bush Administration are criminals.

And not just your common run-of-the-mill criminals, they are war criminals.

They have not only admitted their crimes, but they are proud of them. They have reveled in them.

And everybody who has closed their eyes or turned away or spoken out in support of them or has not done everything within the law to stop them or deny them support has well and truly earned their paid-up membership in the National Society of Good Little Germans.

(Only, in decades to come, the term will be "Good Little Americans.")

If they vote to confirm Michael Mukasey as Attorney General, Charles Schumer and Diane Feinstein will be eligible to receive Good Little German membership cards numbers. 2 and 3 (card no. 1 is reserved for Joe Lieberman).

You can be for the rule of law or you can be a Good Little German. You can be the type of American who would say "give me freedom or give me death" or you can be the kind who would say "take my freedom, but don't bother me."

But what you cannot say is that "I didn't know. I didn't know that the Bush Administration was committing war crimes in my name."

Yes, you did. You knew.

Some of the members of the Bush Administration, in years to come, will be held accountable for their crimes. When that happens, when your children and grandchildren ask you how a country founded on freedom and liberty and the rule of law could turn its back on its history and principles and transform itself into the most powerful rogue state the world has ever known, will you be able to look them in the eyes and say that you did what you could? Will you be able to say that you at least made yourself heard, you petitioned your elected representatives in opposition to the Bush criminals? That you spoke out against their crimes?

Or will you avert your gaze and mumble some half-assed excuse, just like the German parents did after the war?

Will you say "I was against it" or are you going to mutter "I knew nothing, I heard nothing, I saw nothing, I read nothing?"

Which will it be?