By now you may know that top Bush administration officials, with the knowledge and approval of the president, choreographed torture regimens for terrorism suspects held by the US. You probably haven’t heard much about the reaction from Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

That’s because they haven’t reacted. Like most of the press, Clinton and Obama appear not to see anything particularly unusual or worthy of comment in the news that the president, vice president, secretaries of state and defense, the national security advisor, the attorney general and others operating from the White House situation room personally and in considerable detail schemed to violate US domestic law and the Geneva Conventions, which hold the force of law in the US because this country signed them. In common parlance, people who do that are called war criminals.

To repeat: every cabinet official in the Bush administration with national security responsibilities, plus the vice president of the country, with the knowledge and blessing of the president, participated in detailed discussions on how to torture US prisoners. The president has openly admitted to approving a conspiracy to commit war crimes, and neither the press, for the most part, nor either of the opposition party candidates likely to be the next president, seem concerned.

In Congress, House judiciary committee chairman John Conyers says he will hold hearings on the subject, but remains firmly nailed to the wrong side of the fence on convening impeachment hearings. No other Democratic congressional leader seems inclined even to the ritual hand-wringing such revelations typically inspire. The president of the US confesses to war crimes on national television? Just another day at the office.

This isn’t the first time the president has confessed to breaking the law; he did so when he acknowledged the wholesale illegal electronic surveillance he authorized almost as soon as he took office. Back then, Democrats still had the strength to protest, albeit feebly and to no particular end.

One of the more entertaining elements to this story is what it does to the presidential line of succession in the event of impeachment. The 25th amendment to the constitution dictates that if the president becomes incapable of carrying out his or her duties, whether from illness or death or removal from office, the office will be assumed by, in order as available, the vice president, the speaker of the House, the president pro tempore of the Senate, followed by the secretaries of state, treasury and defense, the attorney general, and a host of lesser cabinet lights.

The vice president is, of course, up to his ears in the same crimes that might dislodge Bush from office. The next in line, House speaker Nancy Pelosi, has been aware that the administration planned to formally adopt torture as policy since before they actually did so; abetting the administration’s crimes might reasonably be thought to exclude her from consideration to succeed Bush or Cheney were they removed from office. Which makes Robert Byrd, the current Senate president pro tempore, first in line if the others fall. If for some reason he were removed from the picture, next would be another of the conspirators: then-national security advisor and now secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.

Given the criminal penchant of the administration, the line of succession might reach the level of file clerk before we found someone with relatively clean hands. The graphic below, purloined from Wikipedia, shows the current line—two of the cabinet officers, Carlos Gutierez and Elaine Chao, are ineligible for the presidency and vice presidency because they aren’t natural-born Americans, and a number of the rest have their own potentially crippling debilities.

Or would, in that alternate universe in which people actually care that the executive branch has become an organized crime cartel.

The American Civil Liberties Union is inviting everyone, card-carrying member or not, to join them in calling for an independent counsel to investigate the matter. Although the odds are slim, it’s worth piling on just to let our Congress-critters know you’re paying attention. Go forth and testify.

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