Holder May Investigate Bush Programs

Scott Shane of The New York Times reviews the ways in which the Justice Department is being pressured to investigate Bush administration practices on intelligence and interrogation despite President Obama's reluctance.

President Obama is facing new pressure to reverse himself and to ramp up investigations into the Bush-era security programs, despite the political risks...Leading Democrats on Sunday demanded investigations of how a highly classified counterterrorism program was kept secret from the Congressional leadership on the orders of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Mr. Obama said this weekend that he had asked his staff members to review the mass killing of prisoners in Afghanistan by local forces allied with the United States as it toppled the Taliban regime there...The New York Times reported Saturday that the Bush administration had blocked investigations of the matter. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is also close to assigning a prosecutor to look into whether prisoners in the campaign against terrorism were tortured, officials disclosed on Saturday.

The President has feared that such investigations would exacerbate partisan division in Congress and distract from his ambitious domestic agenda including reforms of health care, financial regulation and energy policy. Commentators such as Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish have long speculated that Obama was "playing the long game" on these matters. This strategy entails public expressions of reluctance to investigate Bush administration programs during his first year in office while pushing for passage of reform legislation, followed by Attorney General Holder moving forward with investigations based on mounting evidence.

--Ballard Burgher