The Sunshine Empire

It seems after the nation has been preoccupied for months with such trivialities as the economic meltdown, and the environment, the issues of Bush era abuses and whether the investigate and prosecute them is right back in the forefront.  This comes not from the revelations of Dick Cheney directly ordering the CIA not to disclose activities to Congress, which is a crime, but also from Attorney General Eric Holder’s assertion that he may begin limited investigations of allegations of authorizing torture by Bush administration officials.  Now President Obama has been lukewarm in stating he has no interest in this, but says that it is up to the Attorney General to make the decision.  Now Obama mildly stating that he wants to look forward has not pleased anyone.  The hard left was looking for blood when they saw the Democrats retake the White House and felt that Bush administration officials that authorized torture would be held to account.  The right have suddenly developed a nuanced belief that administrations should not be involved in looking back to prosecute former administration officials after screaming for exactly that with the Clinton administration.

Now this administration is on much better footing when people have the last disaster of an administration fresh in their minds.  Now six months after the end of the Bush administration the Obama administration now owns the economy in the minds of the American people and any reminders of Bush are welcome ones for him.  Obama has a cacophony of different initiatives and issues on it’s plate and it’s almost better served with the distraction.  As long as it’s not occurring withing the Congress it’s not immediately a hinderence to their, some might say, overly ambitious agenda.  This also is nothing but Obama providing himself political cover.  Much like in his Guantanamo position, he can be on the record as against something while others act on their own.  So this is a fascinating complex political game.  Holder goes out and provides the red meat to the left on Bush and allows Obama to stay a little above the fray.  This all when Obama would like people to remember how much they hated the last guy before they start to lose faith in him.  Whether they can control this many lines of activity is yet to be seen. This much is certain, Holder would not and could not act if he did not have the tacit approval of the White House.

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