Hell, even Obama is not Obama. At least he's not the Obama he said he was when he was running for election. About the only change Obama has brought to Washington is the change between what he said he was going to do as a candidate and what he has done as President.

In any case, I find the term "Blue Dog Democrats" to be much too polite. I believe they should be known henceforth and forevermore as "Vichy Democrats".

I wish there were professional organizations of lawyers who took an unequivocal stand on this.

-- macgupta

I wonder why that doesn't and hasn't happened. I mean I wonder beyond the obvious cowardice that so deeply infects so many facets of the professional class of our society. It seems so obvious that attorneys throughout the states and the world should by now have organized a non-stop push to shame holder and Obama for the purpose of exposing the rank duplicity of not fully investigating this travesty. If Glenn Greenwald can speak about it honestly, forcefully and consistently why not thousands of others who are in a position to be heard and listened to and not ignored?

The very idea of the Attorney General leaking a possible prosecution or appointment of a Special Prosecutor in order to gauge public reaction before deciding whether to do so is itself a perversion of justice and an abdication of his sworn duties. The Attorney General’s decisions on whether to prosecute ought to be based strictly on the law and the ability to present a case.

If for some reason the President doesn’t then believe the perpetrators deserve to be punished or that they deserve leniency, he can pardon them. But if that’s the case, it should be done openly and after the fact. And it shouldn’t be done by the Attorney General, because that isn’t his role.

Treating the Yoo memos as a "baseline" is utterly unjustifiable. Not even the perpetrators did that.

If Holder is willing to say that the Yoo memos constituted a defensible rationale for torture, that would be one thing. But Holder won't do that -- hell, not even the Bush administration ever did that. Keep in mind that while the Yoo memos were secret they were OK with Bush, but that their public disclosure resulted in (1) Rumsfeld -- RUMSFELD!, for chrissake -- issued orders rescinding -- not withdrawing, but rescinding ab initio -- the first batch, and (2) just weeks before the change of administrations this year, the Bush DOJ disavowed the rest.

Holder cannot presume validity of that which has been treated as invalid even by those who ordered its creation. These "analyses" were well understood to be unsupportable and were jettisoned the moment they were exposed. Holder risks nothing in acknowledging these facts and asking the only question that logically follows from these facts: were the analyses knowingly prepared in a manner that divests them of any presumption of "good faith"?

Of course they were. And to ignore that and just pick a few more Abu Ghraib guards to tar and feather will only further cement America's position as the most lawless nation on earth, it will strip the US Department of Justice of any claim to earnest protection of the Rule of Law.

Yoo's memos are, and have long been, the most odious of all the Bush treachery toward the Constitution and the Rule of Law. To allow them to control the actions of our government simply because they were written on a government typewriter is to abandon any concept of accountability whatsoever. That seems like a bad idea.

"But the sources said an inquiry would apply only to activities by interrogators, working in bad faith, that fell outside the "four corners" of the legal memos. . . . The actions of higher-level Bush policymakers are not under consideration for possible investigation."

At the risk of sounding completely "Pollyanna," (I'm generally not one to give politicians much slack), it could be that this is meant as political cover to begin an investigation--one which would ultimately "let the chips fall where they may."

The special prosecutor would be free to follow wherever the facts lead..... except when he is not.

'"As the attorney general has stated on numerous occasions, the Department of Justice will follow the facts and the law with respect to any matter,' spokesman Matthew Miller said."

But, don't get the idea we believe in equality before the law:

"The actions of higher-level Bush policymakers are not under consideration for possible investigation," says the Washington Post, careful to avoid pointing out that administration officials are contradicting themselves by claiming there will be fair and free investigations, while at the same time ensuring that they are only designed to find useful lower-level scapegoats.

I wish there were professional organizations of lawyers who took an unequivocal stand on this.

Oh, you and your fascistic concept of professional organizations. Don't you know that those are only for noncontroversial issues? Next you'll be asking lawyers for a legal definition of "torture," as if there were some kind of legal standard for evaluating questions like that.

And anyway, who would have the patience, fortitude, and sheer bloody-mindedness to needle a bunch of lawyers into issuing a collective statement on behalf of their profession?

I hate to be like Eric Idle hanging on the cross singing about looking on the bright side of life, but is there not a glimmer of hope that once any probe begins, that a momentum is created, in that exposure of a part makes covering up the other corruptions along the way more difficult? I am also referring to a perspective probe of the CIA and Cheney's secret program. Didn't Watergate start as an investigation of one thing and culminate successfully with revelations of another? After all, the GOP didn't start out by investigating Clinton's dalliance with Monica; this was the 'success' that resulted after the ball had gotten rolling on other things. Maybe this disaster can yet be salvaged if the right prosecutor -- a competent prosecutor along the lines of a Fitzgerald -- is selected.

Okay, its pretty lame, I'll admit, but that's the best I can do.