An investigation by Congress cannot work in this day and age. It honestly politicizes way too much. I agree with Carl Levin and with other groups stating that an independent panel or prosecutor would be the ONLY way to do this. Maybe Holder could do this on his own, but I'd imagine he wouldn't want the heat while he was conducting his other investigations.

Hopefully the Leadership will immediately (THIS WEEK!!!!) apply and implement the 'Change We Can Believe In' with the immediate US LEGISLATIVE, FULL FLOOR VOTE of the Identical S1385/HR985 Bills 'FEDERAL EMPLOYEE WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION ENHANCEMENT RESTORATION ACT' and not the continued support for the continued intolerable Corrupt Policies, Practices and Procedures of the previous Administration(s) and Leadership(s) thereof, as applicable!!!!!

As you may recall our entire US Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches of Government seemingly have always fully support this 'Veto Proof' Bill, including as recently as these Identical legislative Bills of S1385 in 2003/4/5/6 and S985 in 2007/8/9.

I hope this report is correct. Leave the investigation to the professionals. The phrase "bipartisan commission" is a euphemism for sweeping things uner the rug. In the instant case there are too many powerful members of Congress (i.e. Fienstein, Harman, and Rockerfeller) complicit in the authorization to torture to allow a congressional investigation. Not that any congressional investigation since the Watergate hearings has produced anything but pardons for criminals.

the Presiden't primary and fundemantal mistake is considering the war crime of torture to be a political problem. It is not a political problem at all. It is a matter of law and order.

There is no dispute that torture has occured.

There is no dispute that torture was ordered to take place from the highest levels of our government and that it was carried out both by the CIA and the military and perhaps by independent contractors.

These crimes must be investigated. All leads must be followed wherever they take the investigators and where warranted, prosecutions must proceed.

The President and his people are fools to consider this as a political problem. They need to start acting like serious people and enforce the law instead of acting like two-bit political hacks.

make up any excuse you want.

this is simply another example of Obama being the washington insider.

no honest observer can claim obama has gone after or supported going after anything done by the bush people.

in fact, he has supported and argued for continuation of bush policy.

lets at least be honest here.

Actually, matters of law shouldn't be up to the president. It's inappropriate.

Likewise, a bipartisan commission would be overly politicized.

We need a DOJ investigation, and a special independent prosecutor free of political interference. If congress wants to investigate, they can, but I woulnd't find it as reliable as an independent invesatigator.

Just chalk this up to yet another collossal mess Bush has left the country, in addition to financial disasters, Iraq and Afghan quagmires, and a global warming catastrophe

Obama is correct. Take it out of the hands of politicians and put it in the hands of the DOJ.

Obama's flipflopping here is annoying. He should have reserved judgment until he actually decided. *(And not let Rahm go on TV and spout before he did).

But the media is ridiculous. They act as if Obama's flubbing of this is some kind of scandal. The scandal is that the media gave a pass to torture, and is still doing it. They are giving tons of airtime to torturers to defend torture.

In conrast, Bush's lie about "the US doesn't torture" was well received by the press corp. "Clear, conside, great message control!" Never mind that it's a lie, you have to give him points for delivery!

At the risk of sounding very naive, I think that Obama might be playing, well, politics. He has done some things (telecom immunity, state secrets, Afghanistan) that I strongly disagree with but how this is playing out seems fundamentally different.

The reason why we are having this discussion is because Obama released the memos. He could have easily just not released them and sent Panetta out to explain why it's so important to keep them secret. Next he keeps talking about immunity and looking forward except for every fourth day or so somebody makes a comment that keeps the hope of prosecutions alive.

Now they are planning on releasing prisoner abuse photos sometime in the next month. I can't imagine this action quelling the public's desire for an investigation. It sounds like they might be releasing additional information like interrogation transcripts and reports on internal investigations into the torture.

It seems like the administration's actions are achieving two things with the public - escalating outrage and providing only the faintest hope of their being justice (which makes populist action necessary while making the desired result appear attainable). The timing also turns the 24 hour news cycle against conservatives. I'm sure that Stewart, Maddow and Olbermann will have a field day juxtaposing photos of naked, hooded prisoners with clips of people on Fox ridiculing the idea that those performing "enhanced interrogation" did anything wrong. Discrediting conservative "journalists" with real journalism - what a concept!

Again, I may be completely misreading the situation. Obama could be indifferent to holding these people accountable and muddling through this. But I think that there is a strong argument for him moving with intent and strategy. Obama has clearly demonstrated his ability to leverage grassroots populism and the torture issue isn't getting swept under the rug like he did with the state secrets legal defense. It wouldn't be the first time we watched conservatives play tic-tac-toe while Obama was playing go (sorry, didn't feel that checkers and chess highlighted the disparity in skill and sophistication).

I think the truth may be simply that Obama regards fixing the economy as his main priority and, indeed, it may be the only issue getting his full attention. The other stuff, like investigating Bush et al, just gets in the way of that mission.

I don't know that one could say that he doesn't regard these other issues as important, just that he doesn't consider them important enough to bother with right now.

Of course, "fixing the economy" does include some top-drawer items like health, education and financial regulation. But, I suspect that if he didn't see those issues in that light, he would not be paying much attention to them, either.

Thanks.

mp

Zachary - Are you daft? Obama said he was in favor of a truth commission if it could be held in a non-partisaned way.

It appears that would not be the case. So instead of saying so, you would feel it was better for him to be stubborn like Bush W and say, "well I stated that I would be for it, so we have to go forward now!"

I am having trouble deciphering the difference here between you & Michelle Malkin with this post.

This ability to be pragmatic is exactly what I voted for.