I think this is the payoff conservatives get by constantly pounding on the meme that they are the iron-jaw party of the military dedicated to defending the shores, opposed to the Democrats who are rainbows and unicorn party of government handouts.

Worse than being a Democrat Obama never served, and as a result he seems to be in a position to be helpless to tell the military what to do (unless it is what they wanted to do already). Turf skirmishes notwithstanding, the intelligence community seems to have attached itself to the Pentagon's position. Clinton had the same problem and that's how you ended with the namby-pamby DADT policy which was really Powell's idea but Clinton will always be hated for it.

The way I read it is that right now the Pentagon and Langley are calling their own shots, and Obama and his DoJ have to tap dance to their tune. I doubt they were ever loyal even to the Bush/Cheney insanity team, which served their purposes and helped them build the leverage they have now. It is going to take a lot more ideological force than Obama could muster (assuming he is so inclined, which is far from certain) to pry them loose from the privileges they have gained and believe should be theirs. I'm not even sure an Act of Congress will do it at this point.

Within the next three months, the Obama DoJ is going to find some way to reverse itself 180 degrees and pretend that this is what they intended all along. Want to start a betting pool?

Obama has painted himself into a lose-lose scenario for himself on this one. When (if) he does clean house, he will look very very weak because the initiative was taken by a non-dominant European country. If he stays the course every day he looks more and more like a sellout.

How ironic it is that the home of the Inquisition would instigate this.

I still think within three months they will find some way to reverse themselves on this and attempt to explain it all away as transition lag or some other lame excuse. It isn't pretty or honorable, but if that does happen we should be grateful for the honest and hard work all the lefty blogs and media sources have done.

I'm with Intercooler. The odds are 4-1 against or worse. There are just too many people in hidden places of power that Obama feels he just cannot piss off. The record shows he crumples like a cheap paper cup on these issues.

But even cheap paper cups can be un-crumpled now and then, but it takes very directed force to do it.

I for one see a bright side to the heavily redacted documents to be released today. There is a chance they can be used to underscore what people should be outraged about. Put them on the front page of every web site and newspaper left in print. Right now the condition is that too many people will here "Obama is releasing state secrets to the Muslim friends he bows to." That has to change and this could do it.

It is pretty amazing how you never heard about the "anger from CIA intelligence community" when the Bush Administration deliberately set out to compromise one of its undercover agents working on WMD intelligence.

Washington is wired for Republican rule and that's that.

I would agree it is the saccharine bromide "we are looking forward and not backward" does damage to the rule of law, but it is more an after-effect of the real reason.

The Republicans showed beyond any shadow of a doubt that rule of law can be wielded as a political weapon by the unscrupulous. Just think of how many times the phrase "nobody is above the law" was uttered on Fox News and talk radio when Clinton was in office, compared to when Republicans owned all three branches of government with change to spare. I don't recall that phrase uttered once when the Plame affair was on the news. Many of them believe that the impeachment of Clinton was nothing more than just desserts to what happened to Nixon.

That is what makes many Democrats so timid about enforcing the rule of law -- they realize that 35% of their constituents will perceive it as a political move and nothing else. (You don't even need to poll just look up the viewership numbers of Fox News and Limbaugh.)

Allen uses the phrase "he [Obama] is more popular than they [ex-Bush Admin] are." Journalistic practices aside, the people who stand behind the OLC memos are warped beyond redemption and should not be tolerated in civilized society -- anonymous or otherwise.

I never heard of Glenn slipping out of control before. Whoa. Glenn if you are feeling chagrined about anything, I believe I speak for most of us that your passion on these subjects is what keeps us coming back over and over again. And we also appreciate your willingness to participate in interactive media such as your own comments section.

Also, before firing Holder, Obama might want to read about what we call the "Saturday Night Massacre" and how well it worked out when Richard Nixon tried it:

Oh, I'm sure he knows all right. Bush's press secretary might not have ever heard of the Cuban missle crisis but it is quite unlikely someone of Obama's academic record wouldn't know about that.

Quite frankly, the best position Obama has right now is for Holder to appoint an independent prosecutor. Obama could then do all the breast-beating he wants about not being about retribution blah blah blah and whenever necessary, point out he had no control over the process. Rule of Law. That's a phrase Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh loves, isn't it?

If I were him I would be relishing this -- not stressing out over it.