I just got through watching press secretary Robert Gibbs do his daily White House press briefing. Ninety-percent of the briefing consisted of various beat reporters acting like panicked schoolchildren at the idea that the president believes no one is above the law and that Attorney General Eric Holder will independently determine if laws were broken in the interrogation programs of the Bush administration.
“Buh…buh…buh…didn’t Rahm Emanual say they shouldn’t be prosecuted?”
“Buh…buh…buh…doesn’t that logically extend beyond the OLC lawyers all the way up to the former president?”
“Buh…buh…buh…aren’t you just caving in to the left-wing and MoveOn.org?
To all of which Robert Gibbs reacted with good-natured befuddlement.
“It should come as some big surprise that the President of the United States believes in the rule of law?”
“It’s up to the Justice Department, not the president, to determine if laws were broken.”
“If there’s any confusion, just listen to what the president said.”
And so on. The press corps feels like they’ve been given a classic bait and switch. Obama announces that no one will be prosecuted for torturing people as long as they abided by legal guidance and goes to the CIA to reassure them. Rahm Emanuel says that the policy-creators should not be prosecuted. And then…BLAM…it turns out that Eric Holder is going to apply a simple test of seeing if the law was broken to the policy makers.
Well, HOLY SHIT, we all know the law was broken. The Supreme Court ruled that Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applied to these prisoners and that means, plain and simply, that Bush and Cheney authorized war crimes. It’s definitional. It’s not even ambiguous. They said it was impossible to commit war crimes against terror suspects and the Supreme Court said ‘bullshit!” End of story.
All that’s left is to look the other way and pretend it didn’t happen, right? That’s sure as hell what the press corps expected.
This is supposed to be a big flip-flop, but perhaps it was planned this way all along. All I know is that if Eric Holder applies a simple standard of a plain reading of the law, the war crimes go all the way to the top. And Obama just gave him permission to conclude whatever he wants using that standard.
Let’s see how much fight the right has left? How many allies does Dick Cheney still have? And let me assure you that, with allies like these, Cheney is in deep trouble because I could rip that piece of crap apart in a couple of days using only open source material.
And there goes another reason for progressives not to jump the gun and assume the worst.
I saw clip of Obama talking (it’s on DKos tv). He clearly left the door open to prosecuting the officials who devised the legal authority for the torture, and gave his support to a congressional investigation, so long as it is done on a bipartisan basis.
This is fine by me, and I think most Americans.
re: the wapo screed, look at the source…marc thiessen…a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, served in senior positions in the Pentagon and the White House from 2001 to 2009, most recently as chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush.
heh, just when they thought they were home free, bush, cheney, abu, yoo, bybee, etal, have got to be sweating bullets right about now. dollars to donuts they’re already lawyered up.
if this is what it appears to be obama just made one hell of a smart move…let the AG do his job…the concept of constitutional separation of powers in action. it’s been a long time since we’ve seen that, no wonder the press corpse is confused.
This is exactly what I was thinking…the best way to deal a death blow to the Unitary Executive is with an independent AG and Congress.
I think we’re starting to see the beginnings of the “long game” from Obama on this one.
dollars to donuts they’re already lawyered up.
I heard yesterday that Bybee is indeed lawyered up.
I have to say, listening to the panic from some members of the chattering class wondering “how this will end” or if this is “going too far” is kind of confusing–especially those who are journalists. Isn’t that in the job description…to continue to dig until you’ve gotten to the bottom of a story?
Just what are we afraid of, hmmm?
Perhaps Holder is just waiting for Patrick Fitzgerald to finish up with Blago before announcing his next assignment… That would be de-licious!
This will be the first time in 10 years (if there are actual criminal prosecutions) that I have seen a member of the government act or do something worthwhile or morally correct.
In the event that this moves forward, as it should, I expect O to take a tremendous amount of criticism and heat in the popular press (in fact I am going to use it as a litmus test of how he is doing, the more heat = the more competent moral decision making on his part).
Obama is challenging us to make him do the right thing.
All he had to do was release the memos, knowing they would ignite a shit-storm that he could only put out by prosecuting.
Now he lets it play out. Chess, Obama-style.
The Rude One has an interesting thought experiment going on…
Cautiously Optimistic