Bill Kristol via Lou Proyect: > Obama stipulated that no one should be > above the law. But he praised C.I.A. > employees, and said he didn't want them > "looking over their shoulders and lawyering." > He took the general view "that when it comes > to national security, what we have to focus > on is getting things right in the future, as > opposed to looking at what we got wrong in > the past."
Blah blah to Kristol. Hope that's okay with Jim and Michael. I have no idea whether Obama will use his power to prosecute Cheney, Bush, etc. I don't know if Kristol knows anything or he's just trying to exorcise the idea. But if I were Obama, at this point, I'd keep the cards close to my chest and say something vague, like what Obama told Stephanopolous. I definitely wouldn't want to hand the Republicans a banner, anything making plausible the claim that there's a "political witch hunt" and crap. I'd make sure that any effort of my administration to enforce Obama's first sentence above was viewed as non political, purely technical in the legal sense, just making sure the laws in the books are duly enforced as a matter of routine. And I'd let the Justice Department handle it on their own. At the same time, for a top post in the Justice Department, for say the person in charge of laying out the department's legal parameters in the next four years, such as the Office of Legal Counsel of the Justice Department, I'd choose somebody who's committed herself publicly to the first sentence above. Like somebody who could "avoid any temptation simply to move on." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/us/politics/08johnsen.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/convictions/archive/tags/arar/default.aspx http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/convictions/archive/2008/04/03/outrage-at-the-latest-olc-torture-memo.aspx http://info.law.indiana.edu/sb/page/normal/1419.html _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
