Attorney General Eric Holder and President ObamaFrom Newsweek:
It's the morning after Independence Day, and Eric Holder Jr. is feeling the weight of history. The night before, he'd stood on the roof of the White House alongside the president of the United States, leaning over a railing to watch fireworks burst over the Mall, the monuments to Lincoln and Washington aglow at either end. "I was so struck by the fact that for the first time in history an African-American was presiding over this celebration of what our nation is all about," he says. Now, sitting at his kitchen table in jeans and a gray polo shirt, as his 11-year-old son, Buddy, dashes in and out of the room, Holder is reflecting on his own role. He doesn't dwell on the fact that he's the country's first black attorney general. He is focused instead on the tension that the best of his predecessors have confronted: how does one faithfully serve both the law and the president?
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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.
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My Comment: This article is written by a journalist with reliable contacts in the Obama administration .... I have to assume that this reporting is true. This also explains why the New York Times and other news organizations that are sympathetic to the Obama administration have been percolating news reports of "secret programs" and "not disclosing information to Congress" in the past week. The groundwork is being laid for this announcement.
This action is going to open up a hornet's nest of political recrimination and controversy that will not only split this nation along ideological lines but it will also undermine how intelligence and the war on terror can be fought. No one is going to do any effective intelligence work or action knowing that there could be legal consequences .... and in the worse case .... jail. Instead of being proactive against threats, the new mindset will be to react after an event .... in other words .... U.S. anti terrorism policy is now back to a pre-9/11 mindset.
The politicization of war conduct is going to have consequences .... a direction that I can assure you that you do not want the U.S. to follow .... but it is a direction that (nevertheless) is now being followed.