The White House press corps gave Robert Gibbs a hard time today about President Obama’s comments this morning that left the door open to prosecutions of Bush officials for torture.
It’s true that the president’s comments go further than anything he’d said before, and could suggest that the White House is tacking this way and that on a crucial subject. That impression is strengthened by the fact that the White House has now had to walk back Rahm Emanuel’s comments from Sunday that the Bushies wouldn’t be prosecuted.
Late Update: Looks like The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein had the same response to the briefing that we did.
But the reporters’ obsession with political process — “Is this an example of this White House giving in to pressure from the left?” asked CNN”s Ed Henry — seems particularly ill-suited to an issue of such grave importance.
Anyway, watch the video: