We the people are culpable

Re “Lawless and soon long gone,” editorial, Dec. 24

Do you have any idea how ridiculous it sounds for you to offer up as a “reckoning” a “scathing report by the Senate Armed Services Committee”? Do you really think that Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld care about that?

I have an idea. The next time a criminal breaks into your house, instead of arresting and prosecuting him, let’s just get the Senate to issue a scathing report condemning him and let him get away with that as his punishment. That’ll teach ‘em!

Randy Snyder

Los Angeles

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As much as I’m emotionally opposed to The Times’ assertion that Bush administration officials should not be placed in the dock, I’m reminded of the immortal words of Walter Lippmann in his 1955 book, “The Public Philosophy”:

“With exceptions so rare that they are regarded as miracles and freaks of nature, successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular -- not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately.”

Clearly, our entire political system failed us, as The Times suggests. But in the end, it is we who are ultimately culpable in these crimes against foreign nations and our Constitution.

Bob Tregilus

Reno