My typing fingers were starting to twitch. I had just watched a recent Democracy Now segment about the new U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture calling on the United States to investigate and prosecute torture. I was all set to send an email to two State Department officials, whose comments at the November 2010 U.S. appearance before the U.N.’s Human Rights Council caused me some concern.
But one clip from President Obama included in a Juan Gonzalez question seemed to have come to an abrupt end with a rising inflexion, so I decided to look it up elsewhere.
Here is how Democracy Now quoted the President from a September 2009 Face the Nation interview:
I have said consistently that I want to look forward and not backward when it comes to some of the problems that occurred under the previous administration when it came to interrogations. I don’t want witch hunts taking place.
A brief search led me to the rest of the President’s quotation. Seven CIA Directors had requested that he cancel the Department of Justice’s recently expanded investigation on detainee torture. Here is his complete response:
Well first of all, I have the utmost respect for the CIA. I have said consistently that I want to look forward and not backward when it comes to some of the problems that occurred under the previous administration, or when it came to interrogations. I don’t want witch hunts taking place. I’ve also said, though, that the Attorney General has a job to uphold the law. He’s got to make a judgment in terms of what has occurred. My understanding is it’s not a criminal investigation at this point. They are simply investigating what took place. And I appreciate the former CIA directors wanting to look out for an institution that they helped to build. But I continue to believe that nobody’s above the law. And I want to make sure that as President of the United States that I’m not asserting in some way that my decisions overrule the decisions of prosecutors who are there to uphold the law.
Having worked for accountability for U.S.-committed torture, I have no illusions about the President’s desire to see such prosecutions, especially for policy makers who authorized, "legalized," or conspired to commit torture. But to portray him as implying that all such prosecutions would be witch hunts is at best misleading; at worst, it’s unprincipled.
I expect government officials to play fast and loose with the facts. I did not expect this of Democracy Now. Maybe I am naive.