We will see.  Obama’s walking a tightrope between those of us who want to see heads on pikes ringing the White House and those who are prepared to call him traitor for attempting to bring the Bushies to anything resembling justice.

In an interview today in Mexico with CNN en Espanol, Obama made the following comment:

We are moving a process forward here in the United States to understand what happened.

That seems to me to be a very lawyer-like and careful comment. 

If I were to map out how I would play this out if I advised the Obama administration, it would look like this:

Exempt the front line folks who acted on the directives of their higher ups.  Calms remaining CIA personnel who feared punishment, opens the door for them to offer specific and detailed testimony without fear of self-incrimination.

Establish an investigative body to review what actually happened.  The “process” to which Obama refers.  Testimony from the people on the front lines and as much as can be gathered from the higher-ups.

Ask international courts to hold off on their own actions until the US has had a chance to complete its investigation and determine next steps.  Implied message to Cheney and his minions: if you cooperate, we’ll shield you from foreign courts.

Release a report that names names and maps out culpability.  Which in turn heightens public pressure at home and internationally toward bringing charges against key players.

Which forces Obama to protect US citizens from trial in foreign lands by “reluctantly” moving forward with prosecutions here at home.

But I’m an optimist and my confidence in Obama to do what’s right in the long run remains high.  We’re a fast-food, short-attention-span, immediate gratification nation, and apparently Keith Olbermann expected that the Obama administration would arrest Cheney and Bush the day he released the memos, and his failure to do so means there will be no justice ever.

If the CIA interrogators were prosecuted, they’d most likely be acquitted.  Then we’d have torture legitimized by an American jury.  Worse in my opinion than torture being rejected and reviled, but the CIA underlings not being prosecuted.

“But at least we tried” would be no balm at all.

In the meantime the CIA would be shut down—closed for business—during the investigation and prosecution. God help the Dems if another terror attack took place during that interval.

I’d love to see Yoo, Bybee, and Addington in the dock, however.

LOVE the illustration—very nice!

You know, I wonder if we haven’t been more (for inability to think of a better word before 8.00 in the am) damaged by Dubya than we realize. The President has spoken and our immediate reaction is to get angry.

Sure this is the correct response, but we also seem to be resigned. Understandable after 8 years of Chimpy McFlightsuit saying make it so and it is, no matter how many people outside of the big plexiglass bubble around 1600 Penn. Ave. shouted no way and fuck you.

Well, He Who Snogs Saudis is gone and has been replaced by a guy who is not a knuckle dragging brain dead smirking shit head and he might be willing to listen.

This is all a long winded way of saying write your Congress critters, write your president. At this point in time they’ll be pleased to receive correspondence that is grammatical and doesn’t include photocopies of teabags. I’m a lazy SOB and I’m almost up for holding a real protest. (With proper permits and no throwing shit on the White House lawn and everything!)

Besides, liberals protesting because the IslahomoKenyanCommie isn’t stomping on spooks who tortured terrists will make FAUX snooze heads explode.

Allan makes a lot of sense to me. That’s kind of what I thought was going on but I did’t have that kind of clarity. I think a certain amount of bitching about it from the left serves a number of purposes right now, too, though. Keeps things out of the memory hole.

HTP, every now and again I have to pinch myself when I remember that a sentient, more than sentient being is in the White House. And I have no regrets about voting for him (Mrs. Flag-Burning Amendment knows a thing or two about pandering for political gain, you lurkers). I also wonder how this will shake out, and remind myself he’s a pretty good chess player.

But then there’s the State Secrets act, which the Obama justice department used against Binyam Mohammed’s lawsuit. He’s home recovering now, but justice was denied him, and a blanket of secrecy and lack of accountability still remains as long as that act is in effect.

I agree with Allan and riffle.  There is a huge balancing act that a president must constantly walk if they want to get their broader agenda addressed.

Sometimes people need to step back and look at the bigger picture from a pragmatic perspective along with realizing that doing the right thing often requires deliberative small steps forward while spending enough time to figure out how to make the bigger picture work properly in the long run.

If we are still having these concerns about the administrations policies a few years from now, than I’ll be upset too.  In the meantime, I’m going to be patient and have faith that fairness and reason will prevail in the long run.

In a previous thread, I said that reforming the CIA is comparable to performing tendon surgery on a runner who’s halfway through a marathon.

The truth and reconciliation won’t happen until an entire generation of CIA bureaucrats is not only retired, but dead.  I wish it didn’t have to be that way, but it is what it is.