I watched the movie Judgment at Nuremberg again this weekend and while I'm not equating the Bush administration with Nazi's I thought a lot of the movie's dialogue was on point with our present circumstances.

This passage spoken by Spencer Tracey's character is particularly on point for those who think that torture is ok as long as it's the U.S. doing it and for those in the media, who argue against prosecutions for Bush administration war crimes because they believe it would be too costly politically.

A decision must be made

in the life of every nation...

at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat.

Then it seems that the only way to survive

is to use the means of the enemy...

to rest survival upon what is expedient,

to look the other way.

The answer to that is: Survival as what?

A country isn't a rock.

It's not an extension of one's self.

It's what it stands for.

It's what it stands for when standing

for something is the most difficult.

Before the people of the world...

let it now be noted...

that here in our decision,

this is what we stand for:

Justice...

truth...

and the value of a single human being.

To view the entire script from this movie click on my sig.

On The Chris Matthews Show this past Sunday there was a discussion about prosecuting torture. Here are some of the comments from our beltway media:

Bob Woodward -

I mean, it--first of all, in some of these things, it's so ambiguous and he has got to get beyond the past. He does not want to create the feeling, which in a sense this week he did create by saying he's going to close Guantanamo, that the war on terror is over."

And if there is a--some sort of perpetual

investigation of these things, the message will be we're going soft. And I tell you, those in the intelligence world and the military and I think Obama himself doesn't want to send that message."

Kelly O'Donnell -

Well, one of the problems is, if they do dig back into all of these things, you do lose some of the Republican support. And President Obama's trying to reach out. You also reinforce what detractors of the Bush-Cheney years already think, so there's very little political upside. And so Eric Holder has been certainly tested, and they definitely--Republicans definitely want to be able to feel like they can stick with their strong principle of defense without having to worry about digging back into some of the things.

Howard Fineman -

Whatever John Conyers is going to do on the House side, he's going to do, and you'll hear a lot of noise from him and maybe some investigations. But it's not going to be backed up by the Democratic leadership in Congress. It's just not.

Anne Kornblut -

And yet we haven't heard any signal from Obama or the White

House itself that they would authorize that, encourage it. Even something that would be as sort of benign as a truth and reconciliation commission, they--every indication is that they want to leave that to ,b>reporters, historians. They want to move on. They--you know, the Hill can do what the Hill can do, but that they're not behind it.

Mr. WOODWARD: And who would you...

MATTHEWS: ...definitive statement.

Mr. WOODWARD: ...investigate and prosecute? I mean, the people who did these interrogations and so forth believe, with good reason, they had authority from the president.

MATTHEWS: They had orders.

Mr. WOODWARD: Now, you know, it's too late to impeach Bush. It's over.

MATTHEWS: But why did we prosecute people at Abu Ghraib for abusing prisoners if we're not going to prosecute people who may have authorized that kind of treatment?

Mr. FINEMAN: It is an issue. But Obama has to run the country, and he and the leaders of the Democratic Party on the Hill have said it's not worth the cost. I mean, I know that Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, wants no part to this.

Link at sig

Remarkably Chris Matthews actually spent a couple of days on his Hardball show last week sounding a lot like us on the torture prosecution issue but after his show with Woodward and company this past Sunday I haven't heard him discuss the issue anymore. I guess he's now back in the fold.

Below is a snippet from last Thursdays Hardball show. Notice how Chris Cilliza doesn't bother to answer Matthews questions, as if by saying that Obama isn't interested in prosecutions makes it unnecessary for him to even address the issue.

MATTHEWS: I just want to ask you, Chris, if you can still prosecute some low level military person for torture or abusing prisoners, why can‘t you at some date in the future go after one of the biggies who authorized it? If it‘s criminal, it‘s criminal. If Dick Cheney or Rumsfeld authorized something that‘s criminal, shouldn‘t they be just as liable to prosecution as some lieutenant or some private in the army? Because we all believe that if somebody gets caught doing something, if they‘re at the lowest level, they do get nailed, because we‘ve seen it. Are we going to say to ourselves, oh, you can put these people in jail and you can put them in for a year or two, if we catch them abusing prisoners. But if it comes out Cheney or Rumsfeld says that was OK, we just let them go? Is that what we‘re thinking about doing, just let them go if something comes up with these guys?

CILLIZZA: Chris, I agree 100 percent with Lynn (Lynn Sweet) on this. Whether you agree or not, my strong sense is the Obama campaign, the Obama presidency is not at all interested in going back and relitigating these things or litigating them for the first time, frankly. That is not something they‘re interested in doing. I think Lynn is 100 percent right, that they view this as a sock to the left with Guantanamo, and they‘re not going to go back in and look at Cheney, Rumsfeld and President Bush. They‘re not interested in doing it.

MATTHEWS: They should declare an amnesty for all lower level people that tortured. They shouldn‘t let the big guys off if they‘re not going to get the little people off.

Here's what Lynn Sweet said earlier:

SWEET: One other thing this helps him, he has another issue called the accountability issue that‘s perculating within the Democratic base and that‘s the look back, are people going to be called to account for war crimes, et cetera.

MATTHEWS: Right.

SWEET: The Obama administration does not want to do that. There are members in Congress, Democrats, who want to. Within the blogosphere, a lot of support for this. By at least moving quickly on the torture and Guantanamo issues, he is at least telling that base, wait, I did what I said I‘m going to do. And it will at least help throw some of his critics off from being as strong against him as they might be if he had not done this. But it also is a central promise, as Chris said.

Link in sig