"The notion that there was no public outrage after the memos is hard to swallow: Certainly in the pages of Salon, and throughout the entire liberal blogosphere, ...

Too bad these were the wrong places. Sure, plenty of Salonistas, HuffPoets, and Daily Kosicans beat their keyboards in outrage - but apparently they posted to their librul blogs, rather than calling/faxing their elected representatives and the Justice Department.

It's easy and satisfying to post. But it doesn't impact the people who make a difference.

This is a good time to try again. Instead of just leaving a message here, also write, call, or fax your representatives.

What is this "MOTUS" of which you speak?

"...that the absence of riots in the street about the unconscionable illegalities of the Bush administration is being bandied about as justification for excusing it."

Contrast with the same absence of with regard to any other affair, but doesn't stop the Administration from acting upon if it desires (or is given orders by its bosses).

How does one get the public to be outraged? By doing one's job. It doesn't work the other way around. The public is not privy to the details of crimes allegedly committed.

It would be irresponsible as well as illegal for Holder not to pursue the alleged crimes of Bush and Cheney and co. However, it is not his responsibility alone!

The Congress is utlimately responsible to monitor Holder's performance - and that of President Obama. The president has no legal right to unilaterally decide to let the previous administration off the hook. The entire world's trust in the US is contingent on righting the wrongs of the previous administration.

What outrages the public? The economy, their family members going to fight in a war, poor education, etc. - they don't really care about the niceties of the Constitution and the law. It is us to Holder to do his job and to keep US citizens as informed as they want to be.

It's shame that we have to prod our elected officials to do their jobs,but we do.Instead of, or as well as, responding here we all need to e-mail our respective representatives,senators and the President and tell them that we want a full investigation to determine who lied and who authorized them to lie to Congress.

It's apparently moved the ball 0.00000000000000000000000019 mm.

Newsweek says he's leaning toward probing Bush-Cheney torture policies, but lack of public outrage weakens his hand Joan Walsh

What sort of whimpy muddleheaded crap is this? Its not down to the general public to force the hand of the AG to get on and do the bloody job he is paid to do.

He is the top law man. His hand should be neither strengthened nor weakened by the arbitrary wishes of the populous.

What the hell is America coming to?

The Newsweek article contains the following:

"The genius of the Obama presidency so far has been an ability to keep social issues off the docket," he said. "But now the Republicans have found their dream…issue and they have nothing to lose."

It is a damning commentary on how far the US has regressed from being the land of the free and the home of the brave, that exposing torture and other unconstitutional transgressions of the executive branch of government has a political downside.

Yes, of course we'd all love to see the Shrubs busted and imprisoned for their crimes, but....

let's let AJ Holder focus on more relevant, current issues such as preventing the DEA from busting LEGAL medical marijuana dispensaries and growers in California and other states where medical marijuana is LEGAL.

What can't his entire department walk and chew gum at the same time or something?

How dumb has America become that it thinks it now has to have a toss up to decide which crimes ought to be investigated?

Hey I did it, I wrote to my senators,my representative and the President telling them that I want an investigation.Somebody reads this stuff, if enough of us write maybe we can warm things up. There are a jillion things that are happening if you really care about this issue at the very least tell those who depend on your vote about it.

we all knew there was a reason why Cheney went out there to muddy the waters in such a public way. He must be celebrating now, because it looks like he managed to confuse just enough people and enough journalists, that the average voter doesn't know what to think about the torture memos, nor does the average voter know what to think about the evidence of torture at Abu Graib, Bagram, and Guantanamo, not to mention other black sites. Cheney did his work well enabled by the many whores in what passes for journalism today.

And my guess is that if it turns out Sy Hersh is correct (and I suspect he is), that Cheney was running a secret assassination squad out of his office, that no-one will care about that either. Our jingoistic journalism, and television (like, 24), has taken care of that. Hell, people will probably think Cheney was cool for doing that.

This is what happens when you have a voting population that is profoundly ignorant of its own politics and system of government. The GOP and more rabid nuts on the Right (and I include cheney in that group), have understood this for a long time. It's how they got power, and how they kept it--by exploiting the ignorance and emotional immaturity of the American electorate.

My guess? Holder won't do shit. And 10 or 20 years from now, the next rendition program will be aimed at domestic targets. And what's left of the Village MSM will be cheerleading that too...because, after all, they won't want to risk rendition themselves.

Holder has a chance to do the right thing, but I don't think he has the courage. Obama certainly doesn't have the courage. And Rahm would have enjoyed running a death squad himself, I'm thinking.

I'm really beginning to think Clinton would have made a better President. I'm just not too sure she could have beaten McCain. It would have been very, very close.