Addington Administration

Something pulled Billmon back out from behind the curtain. The updated post concludes,

God knows I'm all in favor of shedding more light on the CIA's dirty laundry. But there doesn't seem much point in passing a new law unless we're willing to prosecute the people who made mincemeat out of the old one.

Which is to say that the ball is in Eric Holder's court. That is, if you assume that we have a politically independent Justice Department. Otherwise, you can consider it Obama's problem.

Holder might well do the right thing. He is an able lawyer who knows how to run an investigation. And, despite the bashing he would take from the pro-torture right, the Attorney General could come out of the process as an American hero -- a lawman committed to the rule of law, as opposed to the Constitutional wrecking crew that occupied the Department of Justice when Dick Cheney was calling the shots.

But the Attorney General will not do that right thing without a go-ahead from Obama's White House. The president and his aides have been highly resistant to probing the abuses of the previous administration. That stance may be softening.

But don't expect Holder to force the president's hand. The Attorney General is neither so legally nor so politically adventurous.