[Persevero]

“Do you seriously think that, if the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan, they wouldn’t love to prosecute George Bush for every war crime they can dream up? “

Well, that would be in Afghanistan, wouldn’t it? Not here. I don’t think a powerful Taliban in Afghanistan could prosecute a President of another country.

Flipping the coin, do you want Presidents etc. to be able to evade taxes, shoplift, rape, steal cars, abuse their kids?

I think they should be prosecuted for criminal activity just like everybody else.

[ArrogantBustard]

Do you know that there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of people in these United States, foreigners no less, who are utterly and completely immune to any criminal prosecution or civil legal action?

I hope you're appropriately scandalized.

[Campion]

Well, that would be in Afghanistan, wouldn’t it? Not here. don’t think a powerful Taliban in Afghanistan could prosecute a President of another country.

The Pope is the head of state of "another country"; he's not an American citizen.

Flipping the coin, do you want Presidents etc. to be able to evade taxes, shoplift, rape, steal cars, abuse their kids?

The issue is not whether a chief of state has sovereign immunity over the law of his own country, but whether he has it over the laws of another country. That's why the Bush/Afghanistan example is applicable.

This has to do with lawyers in Kentucky and elsewhere who are making the (completely false) argument that every Catholic cleric is an employee of the Vatican, and the Vatican can therefore be sued for any act they commit.