C'mon Joan,

Call it the way it is: Obama is splitting the difference on this issue. He has said just about all he wants to say by clarifying what is and is not "torture" on his watch (that is until there is a need for some and he will change his mind in a heartbeat) but he knows that there really isn't enough traction on this subject to make it worth the downside risk of pissing off the center and the huge independent vote who put him in office. Obama does not want to be painted as soft on terrorism and he wants to keep all his options open in case there is an "incident" while on his watch. Quite frankly, most people see the Left as anti-torture simply because Bush authorized it, so there is a high level of "politics as usual" skepticism in the "faux outrage" over torture and Gitmo. It's a nice compact issue that has wide currency in the Lefty blogosphere where each "itty-bitty" disclosure gets magnified a hundredfold.

Now having summarized the politics of the situation, there is real legal risk for certain Bushie cronies who may have authorized others to cross the line on torture and someday they may have to argue their case in The Hague. But that is outside the realm of everyday politics and people are not focused on the legal niceties.

I do not subscribe to the notion that Obama would own the torture methods of Bush/Cheney if he does not pursue the subject. He has outlawed waterboarding and such by proclamation calling it torture. The country should not become embroiled over a past policy when we are experiencing such financially troubled times. In fact, such a course might jeopardize our recovery. Besides, Bush and Cheney would simply fall back on the claim that their legal advisers gave them the go-ahead. It is all but impossible to prosecute in that environment. Perhaps, the people in Justice who said it was legal should be hauled up for ethics violations, but even that could backfire. The whole business of torture is a land mine and I am satisfied for Obama simply to wag his finger at the perpetrators.

Americans in the main want to move on...they want our energies spent on getting out of our financial woes. The fact that there wasn't a loud clamor against Bush and Cheney over torture is a big fat warning and I'm glad that Obama has heeded it!

Why, if President Obama says that war criminals in Africa need to be prosecuted does the same standard not apply in the U.S.?

Bullshit.

The corporate MSM simply ignores the clamor in the same way that they ignored the millions who marched in protest of the Iraq war. Hey, if they don't report it, it doesn't exist.

Insofar as those like the previous poster 'sesanders', who lamely proclaim that The country should not become embroiled over a past policy, this is unAmerican garbage in its most insidious form. This isn't just some failed "policy" we're talking about here, but war crimes that the United States is required to prosecute under the law.

-

"The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated."

--Justice Robert Jackson, Chief Counsel for the United States, in his opening statement before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal

I firmly believe that. Mr. Holder is an honorable man of immigrant heritage who more than anything aspires to fulfill the essential principles of this nation. As AG he is in the perfect position to do so.

I know that he knows what is right, and that appointing a Special Prosecutor is the one thing he can which would be most effective in extirpating the redolent morass of immorality that was the Bush WH. Where they took the law into their own hands, and made the CIA a law unto itself.

Go for it, Mr. Attorney General! Tne citizens of this nation are behind you 100%!

I would hope that Cheney and his daughter would hit the air wave and try to explain this revelation.haven't heard a peek from them since this news broke.Also haven't heard from O'Reily orHannity.

for the contact info. Let's hope Obama's strong team can walk, chew gum, make strides and prosecute at the same time - if they can't, who on earth could? (And that we don't get Every Night Football out of it.)

From now on, everyone is free to commit any crime they like.....we will only prosecute the ones that outrage the public.

What a joke for his position. And to think that the author thought Holder should listen to the Administration rather than follow the law is really great thinking! There was no torture! Only radical liberal media and politicians played it to the hilt. Most have now given it up after finding out the public agrees with what was done. Even Marines use waterboarding for training. Reportedly some fraternities have used it. The majority of Salon's readers and bloggers are ragtime liberals that know little about what they are talking about. Like 50% of college students, they don't know who's buried in Grants Tomb. Even some Democrats in Congress when first given a briefing (Pelosi included) on waterboarding asked why the CIA didn't do more. Now they are outraged! Go figure! Pelosi never complained. It shouldn't even be a talking point. Just the usual Bush bashing and see if we can get something on him. How sad!

One can surely hope that AG Holder will come down on the side of the angels but practical politics makes it very unlikely. The incestuous relationship that has created de facto one party rule in the imperial city is the major factor. The Dems have their fingerprints all over the Bush-Cheney crimes and they know it. They winked and nodded all the way along with only a few notable exceptions (Russ Feingold, Dennis Kucinich come quickly to mind). In the end, a congress that has been cravenly cowardly will be what it is; a band of cowards. Genuine liberals are in the early discovery stages. Just as real conservatives soon saw thru Bush/Cheney, liberals are about to discover that "change" is a chimera in DC. Only the names of the deceivers change. Those like Greenwald, Walsh Feingold, Kucinich and yes, from the other side the Ron Pauls and Lew Rockwells of the world should be commended to continue to speak out, only continuing pressure provides any small hope that liberty will prevail.