OpEditude: Clinton's 'Careless' Email Record Versus Illegal Actions By GOP Presidents

It's hard to recall any Republicans saying a discouraging word at the time about President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney's federal crimes of lying about information they had about Iraq's involvement in the 911 attacks, and ginning up information they didn't have, that opened the door to war on Iraq. 

It's hard to recall those media reports of Republicans taking the Bush White House and Administration to task because there weren't any. Like a wagon train under attack, Republicans formed a circle around the Bush administration's criminal actions to take America into a war of political convenience against a nation that wasn't involved in the attacks carried out on September 11, 2001 in New York city. President Bush the Junior, our 43rd Commander-in-Chief, has cost this nation trillions in taxpayer funds so far with more to come since soldiers are still stuck there due to the deal George W. Bush cut with new Iraq leaders who wouldn't give immunity to actions committed by American Soldiers. Obama inherited Bush's exit agreement, and has done the best he can with a bad hand.

Not learning from former Republicans' illegal and costly mistakes, Republicans and their all-but crowned presidential nominee, Donald Trump, are raring to go to gin up another costly war, this time the pretext is defeat ISIS. Saddan Hussein was a brutal dictators, as most dictators throughout history have been, but he kept tight control on his Shiite citizens, who now control Iraq courtesy of Bush totally misunderstanding that religious sects don't really care about democracy. They don't hate us for our liberty and rules of law, as Republican neocons would have us believe. The west has been playing in their religious sandbox for decades, and Bush letting the furies of hell lose was the opportunity Shiites saw to persecute Sunnis. Catholics and Protestants warred against each other for centuries, and Shiites and Sunnis have been at it since the death of Mohammed in 632 A.D. Little has changed since.

Thousands of dead American soldiers and tens of thousands more who returned home wounded or maimed by a senseless war that in another era might have seen the powers behind such a ruthless agenda go to jail or meet their maker, is America's reward for allowing brazen rulers like George Bush and Dick Cheney to go unchallenged and unjailed.

With the news that FBI Director James Comey did not recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton's "careless" misuse of state department emails, which contained various levels of classified information, Republicans have hyperventilated that the Clinton's, this time Hillary, skirted laws again that have ensnared other lesser officials.

Discouraging as it may sound to Republicans, who despite one exhaustive report after another that cleared her of any legitimate crimes allegedly committed, this report from Director Comey again found Mrs. Clinton was not out to sabotage America as Trumpian Republicans accuse her of doing. Hillary Clinton's arrogance and carelessness maybe character flaws, but they are not federal crimes.

Shame: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, The Iraq War

Republicans have yet to apologize, let alone atone for George W. Bush's terrible, awful years in the White House. He left the nation with soaring job losses and an economic meltdown that nearly created a second Great Recession. But for a Democratic president who enjoyed a Democratic Congress for his first two years, GOP officials' austerity budgeting and misdirected tax programs would have paved the path to true economic devastation had they been the path pursued instead of the one approved by a Democratic congress that enabled President Obama to staunch the bleeding from dramatic job losses.

The stimulus package President Barack Obama proposed, that all Republicans obstructed at every turn and voted against, saved millions more jobs being lost by stabilizing state budgets, and saving an auto industry that Republicans like venture capitalist Mitt Romney, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Rob Portman, the Buckeye State's junior senator in Washington, would to a man have let disappear. Following their led would have caused economic hardships across the nation, and especially in auto parts-supply chain intense Ohio, that would have taken down America, then the world, in a spectacularly irresponsible way to gruesome to even contemplate. America is still paying the price for George Bush's war in Iraq 13 years later.

Shame: Dick Cheney, Energy Meeting Minutes, Karl Rove, Missing WH Emails

In today's digital era full of emails, Hillary Clinton using a private email server is not unique, given so many others, including top Republicans in former administrations, have done the same. Republicans were suspiciously silent when Vice President Cheney fought to keep records of his secret meetings with energy industry leaders at the White House from prying public eyes. When George W. Bush did leave the White House, tens of thousands of emails on a separate email system set up by White House officials, including Bush kingmaker Karl Rove, went missing. The GOP establishment wasn't at all concerned then on what they did, so why are they now so intent on seeing Hillary Clinton wearing government -issue pinstripes?

Shame: Richard M. Nixon, Watergate, Gerald R Ford

Republicans today should reflect but won't on the full pardon Richard M. Nixon received in 1974 from his then vice president, Gerald R. Ford. President Ford took the oath of office when President Nixon resigned his office as roads from the Watergate Hotel break-in two years earlier in 1972, which Mr. Nixon knew about even though he said he didn't, led directly into his Oval Office redoubt. For the good of the country, President Ford issued a full pardon for all offenses President Nixon committed against the United States so his illegal criminal actions could pass into history books. Mr. Ford justified this decision claiming that a long, drawn-out trial would only have further polarized the public.

Democrats could have turned Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon for violating the constitution into a national crisis. But they didn't. President Nixon's abuses did open the Pandora's Box of government distrust that haunts us to this day. After World War II, government was an asset, not an enemy as many today see it.

Shame: Ronald Reagan, Iran-Contra

Then there was the Great Communicator's administration in the 1980s. Ronald Reagan blatantly violated American law when he lied directly to the American public in a TV appearance about trading arms for hostages in what became known as the Iran-Contra affair. It was all true, as the nation learned later, but Republicans revere Ronald Reagan as a political saint to this day when he clearly wasn't. Democrats complained at the time, but The Gipper served out his term in Washington instead of a federal jail cell.

And how can Casper Weinberger, Reagan's secretary of defense, be forgotten? He participated in the transfer of United States Hawk and TOW missiles to Iran during the Iran–Contra affair. As history and Wikipedia tells us, Prosecutors brought an additional indictment against Weinberge four days before the 1992 presidential election that cited a Weinberger diary entry contradicting a claim made by President George H.W. Bush. Republicans claimed that it contributed to Bill Clinton beating President Bush. Weinberger dodged a bullet when a judge threw out the indictment on technical grounds. 

"Before he [Weinberger] could be tried on the original charges, he received a pardon from President George H. W. Bush, who was Reagan's vice president during the scandal, on December 24, 1992.

Careless: Hillary Clinton, Emails

If Hillary Clinton should be prosecuted for her email faux pas, as Republicans want and Donald Trump would do if elected president, appointing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to do the hunbting, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should be dragged into federal court like Germans were dragged to Nuremberg to stand trial to answer for their high crimes and misdemeanors. Bush, Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condolezza Rice all intentional created catastrophic conditions that to this day still plague America, her allies and the world.