His thoughts mirror mine.

The last 10 of those days were dominated by Obama’s defensible release of what are accurately called the “torture memos.” But then came what looked like a willow bending beneath hot winds from his hyperliberal base, which still luxuriates in loathing the Bush administration. Obama shut the door on possible prosecutions of Bush officials for authorizing torture, then two days later he left the door ajar. But to read the memos is to realize what quicksand the Obama administration would step into if it tried to hold the authors of them legally accountable.

The authors’ reasoning is dense and unconvincing as it reaches conclusions that leave interrogators virtually unconstrained as to their methods. But it is reasoning and is not easily susceptible to proof that the authors intentionally misconstrued the law. Torture was indeed the subject of much tortured reasoning by zealots among Bush’s lawyers, who were determined to hack away at any restraints on presidential power concerning national security. But if meretricious lawyering is a crime, millions of lawyers in our litigious society shall not, in Hamlet’s words, ‘scape whipping.

And then there is the inconvenient truth that many Democratic congressional leaders, who were not bashful about criticizing the Bush administration, knew of, and were silent about, the interrogation methods. An investigation of the past might crimp the style of some people who are currently grandstanding about the subject of torture.

I would further argue that to engage in torture prosecutions will so consume the country that Obama will by default have to kiss the rest of his agenda goodbye. He has to decide which is more important to him.

Read George Will.

Tags: George Will, Torture Memos

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