No Responsibility 

No Responsibility

If memory serves me right, one of the arguments used to justify the execution after the second world war of General Yamashita for war crimes committed by his troops during the war was that even if he was unaware of and unable to halt the atrocities committed by troops under his command, he was still ultimately responsible for them. I think that is a sound principal, though I have never quite accepted that as a rationale for executing somebody, especially when, as in the case of Yamashita, it is applied to somebody who no longer retained control over the troops committing the atrocities. The principal though, that responsibility should be traced as far up the chain of command as can be rationally sustained, is sound. The Bush administration, however, despite having been swept into office by a conservative movement that has for decades bemoaned the loss of a willingness to accept responsibility, seems to not embrace it at all. Nobody of any consequence in the Bush administration is willing to accept responsibility for the Abu Ghraib outrage, or any of the other fiascos and crimes tied to this administration. Instead, we get the Shrub calling Rumsfeld's performance "superb." As my man Inigo Montoya would say, I do not think that word means what he thinks it means.