Someone needs to hand Chuck Todd the Constitution to read.

Political Exile is punishment enough for Bush/Cheney? Chuck Todd votes aye.
Chuck Todd is more than mere Villager in this interview with the, ahem, Constitutional scholar Glenn Greenwald, he is defender of the Bush Administration, and any administration's ability to make up their own rules. In Todd's Politics Uber Alles worldview, losing an election is the best/worst punishment for any Presidential wrong-doing. This is the line Cheney has used, as well: that because Bush "won" two elections, their power was absolute and inviolable for at least the term of office, and now it appears, beyond.

Audio from Salon Radio, where the full transcript is also available.

Glenn Greenwald: So what do you think happens - I think what has destroyed our reputation is announcing to the world that we tolerate torture, and telling the world we don't --

Chuck Todd: We have elections, we also had an election where this was an issue. A new president, who came in there, and has said, we're not going to torture, we're going to do this, and we're going to do this--

GG: What do you think should happen when presidents--

CT: Is that not enough? Isn't that enough?

GG: When, generally, if I go out and rob a bank tomorrow, what happens to me is not that I lose an election. What happens is to me is that I go to prison. So, what do you think should happen when presidents get caught committing crimes in office? What do you think ought to happen?

CT: You see, this is where, this is not - you cannot sit here and say this is as legally black and white as a bank robbery because this was an ideological, legal --
GG: A hundred people died in detention. A hundred people. The United States Government admits that there are homicides that took place during interrogations. Waterboarding and these other techniques are things that the United States has always prosecuted as torture.

Until John Yoo wrote that memo, where was the lack of clarity about whether or not these things were illegal? Where did that lack of clarity or debate exist?

They found some right-wing ideologues in the Justice Department to say that this was okay, that's what you're endorsing. As long the president can do that, he's above the law. And I don't see how you can say that you're doing anything other than endorsing a system of lawlessness where the president is free to break the law?

CT: Well, look, I don't believe I'm endorsing a system of lawlessness; I'm trying to put in the reality that as much that there is a legal black and white here, there is a political reality that clouds this, and you know it does too.