July 12th, 2009:

via Holder Torture Investigation Likely.

WASHINGTON — Contrary to White House wishes, Attorney General Eric Holder may push forward with a criminal investigation into the Bush administration’s harsh interrogation practices used on suspected terrorists.

Holder is considering whether to appoint a prosecutor and will make a final decision within the next few weeks, a Justice Department official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on a pending matter.

(snip) Obama has repeatedly expressed reluctance to having a probe into alleged Bush-era abuses and resisted an effort by congressional Democrats to establish a “truth commission,” saying the nation should be “looking forward and not backwards.”

Attorney General Eric Holder with the President

Again, the Associated Press gets the story half right. Sometimes they miss the mark altogether, but that’s for another time. This article, like so many before, is an attempt to diss the Obama administration. It is an attempt to convey that doubt exists as to the administration’s choice of the best course of action to take dealing with the prior administration’s criminal activity. The Bush administration’s criminal activity, such as torture and warrantless wiretapping, has now become commonplace knowledge and settled fact. Now the AP has jumped on a half-baked notion, calling it a story, that is more like the DOJ is simply musing over the possibilities of a special prosecutor rather than discussing an actual plan to proceed. Discussions of possibilities are, and should be, a practice at every level of government and should not be misconstrued as indecision.

This topic of whether or not to prosecute has been around ever since before the election. Salon.com analyzed the non-confusion back in August of 2008 when then Candidate Obama said, “If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated”. Of course Candidate Obama went on to say that he would not want his first term consumed by something the Republicans could call a witch hunt.

Sam Stein of the Huffington Post covered the exact same territory back in January of 2009 pointing out that Obama’s transition team had opened their website up for questions. The question of whether or not to prosecute turned out to be the most asked. From The Huffington Post:

Responding to the most popular inquiry on the “Open for Questions” feature of his website, Barack Obama said on Sunday that he is “evaluating” whether or not to investigate potential crimes of the Bush administration, but that he was inclined to “look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

The answer was delivered during an interview to This Week With George Stephanopoulos. But the question itself has been weeks in the work.

The Obama transition team, as part of its efforts to open up the political process, had allowed web users to vote on questions for the incoming administration to field. To the top rose a query from Bob Fertik, president of Democrats.com, asking whether the incoming administration would appoint a special prosecutor to “independently investigate the greatest crimes of the Bush administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping.”

This was back in January, there is a new posting today from davidswanson at Democrats.com stating, “We need to demand consideration for prosecution EVERYONE who broke laws.” Not excluding those who were “following orders” and including everyone, all the way up the chain of command to the tippy top. There are many of us on that page.

However, I think the AP and others should limit their speculation to the realm of “what if” and not try to convey any other meaning. The article starts out stating that “Contrary to White House wishes” Holder may go ahead with an investigation, but it is clearly not contrary to Obama’s campaign statements. Obama has said that no one is above the law and that he would leave things up to Holder.