Independent’s Day
By Daniel Klaidman | NEWSWEEK
Published Jul 11, 2009

Obama doesn’t want to look back, but Attorney General Eric Holder may probe Bush-era torture anyway.

Alone among cabinet officers, attorneys general are partisan appointees expected to rise above partisanship. All struggle to find a happy medium between loyalty and independence. Few succeed. At one extreme looms Alberto Gonzales, who allowed the Justice Department to be run like Tammany Hall. At the other is Janet Reno, whose righteousness and folksy eccentricities marginalized her within the Clinton administration. Lean too far one way and you corrupt the office, too far the other way and you render yourself impotent. Mindful of history, Holder is trying to get the balance right. “You have the responsibility of enforcing the nation’s laws, and you have to be seen as neutral, detached, and nonpartisan in that effort,” Holder says. “But the reality of being A.G. is that I’m also part of the president’s team. I want the president to succeed; I campaigned for him. I share his world view and values.”

These are not just the philosophical musings of a new attorney general. Holder, 58, may be on the verge of asserting his independence in a profound way. Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that he is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do. While no final decision has been made, an announcement could come in a matter of weeks, say these sources, who decline to be identified discussing a sensitive law-enforcement matter. Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama’s domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months. “I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president’s agenda,” he says. “But that can’t be a part of my decision.”

I can’t even watch Obama anymore without thinking “phony”, “demagogue”. I know this isn’t always fair, but then I think about his position re letting torturers and mass murderers go free, and I think… “phony… demagogue…”

How is it that the creeps who ran our country for 8 years have gotten away with so much? There are piles of evidence left and right that could be used to prosecute those jerks!/rhetorical question

how? well, it came to us with pelosi’s brilliant strategy of “impeachment is off the table.” why? that i don’t know.

signed the petition.

I’ll be keeping track of this issue for some time to come, and I imagine so will Marcy, Glenn Greenwald (thanks Edger for the link), and other, not least, of course, PHR.

Greenwald is also on this today with a good rundown, and this comment:

War Crimes are heinous and intolerable acts that all decent people reject; “anyone suspected of war crimes should be thoroughly investigated”; and War Criminals must not be allowed in any positions of authority . . . . except when the War Crimes in question are committed by Americans, in which case all investigations and accountability must be blocked and those who defended and even approved them are perfectly welcomed in our highest positions of authority (including, ironically, overseeing our war in Afghanistan).  See also, quite relatedly:  this post from earlier today on how we continue to shield from any accountability the clear and serious crimes committed by Bush officials in how they spied on Americans.  Let’s just repeat the sermon from the anonymous Obama official in demanding an investigation into crimes by this Afghan warlord:  “We believe that anyone suspected of war crimes should be thoroughly investigated.“  It doesn’t appear that they know what the word “anyone” means.

How is it that the creeps who ran our country for 8 years have gotten away with so much? There are piles of evidence left and right that could be used to prosecute those jerks!/rhetorical question