Think about it for a second, folks. What if the President-Elect fully intends to investigate and, in all likelihood, prosecute those who appear to have committed war crimes? How could he do it when the current President has the power to preemptively pardon those who may have tortured and violated the law by wiretapping without a warrant? There's only one way to do this, really.
You have to sucker the criminals. You have to make them believe you'll leave them mostly alone. If President Bush is not confident that Barack Obama will stay his hand in the interest of comity and stability he will aggressively issue pardons.
Obama's and Holder's statements have been ambiguous in certain respects. We on the left have mostly interpreted that to mean he'll leave these folks like Yoo and Bybee alone. That's certainly possible. He also might do a searching truth and reconciliation board. I'm sure we'll see some form of that, and it is needed. But I just can't see Barack Obama leaving the architects of this policy alone. He may never seek indictments of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, and there are good reasons not to (I don't agree with that choice, but I can see why others might), but the DOJ and White House lawyers who dismantled the rule of law certainly must have drawn Obama's ire, if not wrath.
I think we're in for a shock. And I think Yoo, Bybee, Libby, and Addington are in for a bigger one. Given how sly the President-Elect was in getting elected, I really have to wonder if he's not playing his opponents again.