Sorry, Mr. President, but this is disgraceful:
Obama asked the nation to stop fighting about what happened so many years ago before he took office. "Rather than another reason to refight old arguments," he said [in a written statement], "I hope that today’s report can help us leave these techniques where they belong — in the past."
Obama sees the situation differently than he did as a candidate denouncing the incumbent of the other party. In his statement on Tuesday, Mr. Obama not only did not condemn Mr. Bush for authorizing the techniques [torture], but he also sounded a note of empathy.
As Sen. McCain experiences maybe his finest hour, President Obama is sinking into one of his darkest. The much-overused exhortation for "leadership" is, in this instance, supremely apt, and yet the president is punting.
Worse, he's encouraging the nation's collective consciousness, if you will, to leave not just the techniques but the memory of torture "in the past." That is not a characteristic sentiment of the historically grounded, historically sensitive president I know, or, rather, that I thought I knew. It is instead the sentiment of a faux conservative obscurantist.
The Times reports that Obama is "facing an uncomfortable choice" between his CIA director, John Brennan, and the Senate Intelligence Committee's findings. It's a discomfort that Obama should overcome--and fast. This is no time, nor is torture an appropriate issue, for Bush-like loyalty. On many issues I may be a Montaignean skeptic, but on this one I'm certain. Period.