I don't know how many of you have been reading Marc Ambinder recently, he's been giving the whole torture memo story some serious insider coverage, especially interesting comments from both Obama administration officials and those who didn't support the release of the memos.
I tend to agree with most of those people whol call on Obama to enforce justice ON SOME ONE. Somebody needs to answer for broken laws and broken minds from torture. I don't think Obama is somehow dismisive of the law, or thinking we are all fools. He knows what he's doing. Over the last 3 years I've watched him do what I thought (and a lot of you too) was a mistake, like not going tough on Palin, not choosing public campaign funding, and a bunch of other things we tought would doom him for ever, only to see him bounce back and prove us wrong.
Maybe I trust him to much, and just like him personaly. I duuhno, but anyway, here is Marc Ambinders info about how Obama came to the decision to realese the memo's but announce that there will be no prosecution for those who acted in good faith.
In the wake of President Obama's decision to release the OLC memos authorizing the CIA's enhanced interrogation program, it can be stipulated that there is plenty of angst at the Company right now. One doesn't have to quote an unnamed Bush administration official to this end
He goes ont ho quote an Obama official about the decision:
the release of the memos was, according to this official, the single most Obama-esque thing the President has done since taking office. That is -- it's the most risky, most un-culture-of-Washington, most-in-your-face-against-the-bureaucracy decision he's made.
How is that? Most of his critics are saying this only shows weaknes, and political scoring. Marc:
I'm told that Obama made the decision to release the memos early in the process. Those who tried to persuade him to change his mind unfortunately used two arguments that he found unpersuasive. One, they gang-tackled him with a united show of opposition from former CIA officials; releasing the memos would harm the CIA right at the moment when Obama most needed the CIA.
Obama didn't like that argument at all:
...because he does not like to be cornered and he did not run for president to cater to the way Washington works. Publicly damning the CIA -- basically -- is a heckuva shot across the bow.
But:
...Obama was concerned about morale, the official insisted. That's why he agreed to release the memos accompanied with a statement promising that his Attorney General wouldn't prosecute those who had acted in good faith... a gesture of respect (for the CIA on behalf of Obama). So was, transparently, his remarkable visit to Langley, VA this afternoon.
But, in his visit to Langley, he told the CIA officials and about 50 agents there, that:
What makes the United States special and what makes you special is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideas when when it's hard, not just when it's easy, even when we're afraid and under threat, not just when it's expedient to do so."
Marc:
I think Obama knows precisely what he did, and I think he's betting that the CIA will respond to his vision more quickly than the CIA thinks it will. But if CIA officers are willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, they will look to him for substance, not words.
I think I already posted to much of the article, hehe. But, you can read it all at The Atlantic, and at the end, Ambinder follows up with the questions of just how much will the CIA go along with Obama.
If Obama sees that the CIA Is willing to follow him, he will have less trouble in prosecuting those responsible for the memo's or anybody who acted illegally (not in good will).
I don't think this is weekness. A lot of you might think that, or might compare him to FDR, Truman, Lincoln, Mandela or Elliot Ness and for some reason, a lot of you think that none of those people EVER compromised the law or their values at some point.
Obama knows better than all of us, what he can and should do at the moment. We'll see what happens.