By BILL KAUFMANN
I really hope he shows up in the flight suit.
He can also, in good conscience, bring along that banner he once courageously blamed on sailors because this time, his mission really is accomplished.
It's hard being a stranger to those accomplishments -- international law and a nation's image disemboweled, untold billions cast to the winds, cronies rewarded and the rest be damned.
Civilians incinerated by liberty bombs while it's others who are the terrorists.
Like 9/11 with its many warnings, failure a successful ingredient for the ensuing narrative. Where does it end? It's like capping carp in a tub.
But his biggest accomplishment may unfold next month and Calgary's his chosen stage.
While legal peril swirls around George W. Bush's White House lawyers for their role in empowering torturers, Bush will cross an international border -- possibly for the first time -- as a free and private citizen.
It's only a couple of months since a Senate committee fingered Bush and Dick Cheney for torture, meaning U.S. law enforcement is obligated to indict them.
Almost the day word came of his Calgary date, unredacted U.S. government documents detailed how their interrogators in Iraq and Afghanistan battered their victims to death.
You mean they weren't just lingerie parties?
Up in the land of leaky tailing ponds, far from a cynical D.C. Beltway, there's an unwitting acknowledgement of the power reality. "He's a free man -- he can travel to any country he wants," said Ed Stelmach.
Pity that -- and two-tiered justice, even under new management in Washington.
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Kaufmann_Bill/2009/02/20/8459146-sun.php
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