In the Year 2017

Imagine the follow scenario:

The Obama administration has completed two terms. It has had the typical round of successes, some notable failures, and numerous political controversies. For various reasons the electorate selects a Republican administration in 2016. It matters not whether the President inaugurated in January 2017 is this or that Republican, only that the candidate ran in part in opposition to the more controversial moves of the Obama administration, including especially its aggressive--but by that time clearly temporary--takeover of large segments of the American financial system and manufacturing economy.

By this time the economy has largely recovered. Banks are mostly sound and are lending money. Automobiles are still being manufactured by what's left of the Detroit automakers, now much smaller than before. Most government control of these segments of the economy has abated, and the plan for returning banks and automakers entirely to private hands are moving forward. For a time GM became "Green Motors," but even here sensible voices prevailed, and the company manufactures decent cars that consumers want instead of unprofitable cars that regulators adore but consumers hate.

But the victorious Republican candidate has managed a successful campaign strategy playing on the public's unease with the Obama administration's economic policies, especially those followed in the deepest part of the crisis. The charismatic Republican harnessed the fears and frustrations of many by declaring openly that he would restore America's constitutional commitment to economic liberty after the socialistic program of Obama. Specifically, he has declared it unconstitutional for the government to intervene to bail out banks and automakers and left open the question as to whether those who did so should be prosecuted.

Months after her inauguration, the new President is pressured by her political base to put her campaign rhetoric into action. Those like Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and their underlings, who masterminded the bailouts and for a time controlled the decisions at GM and Citigroup, have violated their oaths to uphold and defend the constitution, acting outside American bankruptcy laws, arrogating to the executive branch bankruptcy authority that belong to the judiciary and compromising the rights of shareholders, bondholders and others with claims on the corporations. They must be punished.

At first the President says nothing. Pressed by reporters, her chief of staff states on an interview program that she has no plans to prosecute those who led the goverment takeover of banks and automakers. But facing still more pressure, the new President states publicly that the decision is not closed, that the Attorney General must determine whether to prosecute those who gave legal and policy advice that overstepped the boundaries of the constitution.

Individuals who had given policy and legal advice in a time of crisis now find themselves subjects of federal investigations. They face the prospect of crippling legal proceedings with crippling legal bills, of careers ruined because they gave advice that was followed, with which others disagreed, and which was deemed criminal when power changed hands.

Well, our little fantasy is transparent. This very scenario plays itself out today as the authors of the so-called "torture memos" from the Bush administration are now potentially targets of prosecution by the Obama Justice Department.

We leave aside the finer points of legal interpretation here, as well as the debated benefits of "harsh interrogation" in the War on Man-Caused Disasters. We confine ourselves to the larger issue of political and governmental philosophy. Who thought that our storied Republic would become one in which the electoral victors throw the vanquished in jail?

Those who decide to criminalize policy differences must simultaneously assure that they never lose power, lest in sowing the wind they reap the whirlwind of retribution.