Sen. Kit Bond: Obama Is Building A Banana Republic (VIDEO)

Sen. Kit Bond suggested on Thursday that the openness of the Obama administration to merely investigating the possibility of criminal activity during the Bush years amounts to creating a banana republic government of the type seen in the Third World countries.

The Missouri Republican, in an appearance on MSNBC, was asked to opine about the possibility of investigations -- either through Congress, the Justice Department or an independent commission -- into the use of torture by the Bush administration.

This whole thing about punishing people in past administrations reminds me more of a banana republic than the United States of America. We don't criminally prosecute people we disagree with when we change office. There were a lot of questions that could have been asked of the Clinton administration failing to recognize the war on terror. They did not. The Bush administration went forward and that's the way our country should. The president said he was going to be forward looking and now he has opened up a stab in the back.

The pejorative reference to countries rife with political instability from legal and even military vendettas was enough of a shock host Andrea Mitchell to prompt a request for clarification.

"I am saying that those who want to have public hearings and show trials in the United States Congress... would be following tactics that are more appropriate for a banana republic," replied Bond. "I don't think the Obama administration wants to say the next time the Republicans get in control they will have show hearing-trials and try to institute criminal prosecutions against people who carried out orders of the Obama administration."

Bond is retiring from the Senate in 2010.

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