Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Obama open to Hill probe of harsh interrogations

P.M. Carpenter at the end of a pretty good analysis of the political side v. the legal:

He needs Pat Leahy or Dianne Feinstein or John Conyers or somebody to take the bloody heat off him. That's the wiser alternative -- have Congress investigate Bush's conspicuously criminal architects and have Justice follow up. Furthermore, I suspect that's the alternative that Obama has been begging for behind the scenes: for someone of a Congressional bent to force Justice's hand.


From AP via Raw Story one hour ago:

The Obama administration appears to be backpedaling a bit regarding torture probes of former Bush officials.

The Associated Press reports:

President Barack Obama is leaving the door to open to possible prosecution of Bush administration officials who devised harsh terrorism-era interrogation tactics.
...

[...] But he also said that it is up to the attorney general whether to prosecute Bush administration lawyers who wrote the memos approving these tactics.

Obama is feeling the pressure following the release of the bullshit boilerplate CYA and CIA torture memos and is starting to see the light: we gotta clean up our back trail before the road ahead means anything.

I understand his need for political cover. I don't care who instigates prosecutions, only that it gets done.

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