Via Big Tent Democrat, we get this, from CNN (emphasis mine):

Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that he would “follow the law” as he weighed potential prosecutions of Bush administration officials who authorized controversial harsh interrogation techniques.

Big Tent points out that President Obama has already contradicted this, by stating that CIA interrogators won’t be investigated. But I’d also like to remind CNN that even John McCain understands the difference between “harsh interrogation techniques” and torture. So, why doesn’t CNN?

What does that make the Bushes?

Photo by Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times

New York Times:

For the first time in 18 years, the Pentagon granted the press access on Sunday night to cover the arrival of a coffin to Dover Air Force Base from overseas.

The coffin, draped in a flag and bearing the body of Air Force Staff Sgt. Philip Myers of Hopewell, Va, was unloaded from a government aircraft by the military honor guard. The 30-year-old Mr. Myers was killed by an improvised explosive device near Helmand Province in Afghanistan on April 4, according to the Defense Department.

A ban on news coverage of returning war dead, which had been in place since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, was lifted by the Obama administration following a review of the policy by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Glenn Greenwald finds comfort in liberal dissent:

It’s certainly true that one has no difficulty finding cult-like liberal veneration for Obama – those who invoke Bible-like “he’s-a-master-of-11-dimensional-chess” clichés to justify whatever he does (the Lord works in mysterious ways but even when we don’t understand what He does, we Trust that He is Supremely Good and more Wise than us and knows best); who declare, in Bush-like “with-me-or-against-me” fashion, all critics of Obama to be the Enemy; who pay homage to Kim Jong Il-like imagery such as this and this; who believe that “trust” — a sentiment appropriate for family and friends but not political leaders — should be vested in Obama and thus negate any concerns over how he exercises power.  Some overly-eager journalists and bloggers are devoted to carrying forth the administration’s message (usually delivered anonymously) in exchange for favorable treatment and/our due to a painfully excessive sense of devotion, and there’s a Democratic establishment with a built-in machinery to defend Obama no matter what he does.

But outside of those anonymity-granting blogger/journalists and Democratic apparatchiks, these drooling, worshipful, subservient sentiments are largely confined to the fringes.  With some exceptions, to find this right-wing-replicating blind loyalty to the Leader, one has to search blog comment sections and obscure diarists.  Many — arguably most — of the most vocal liberal Bush critics have kept their critical faculties engaged and have been unwilling to sacrifice their political values and principles at the altar of partisan loyalty.

It should be emphasized that mere criticism for its own sake is also not a virtue.  Those who reflexively and blindly criticize whatever Obama does (based on the immovable, all-consuming conviction that he is intrinsically Evil) are nothing more than the opposite side of the same mindless coin as those who reflexively and blindly praise whatever Obama does (based on the immovable, all-consuming conviction that he is intrinsically Good). Pre-ordained, overarching judgments of Obama that are detached from his actions and grounded in Manichean caricatures are irrational in equal measure, whether that judgment yields praise or condemnation.

A rational citizen, by definition, praises and supports political leaders only when they do the right thing (regardless of motive), and criticizes and opposes them when they don’t.  It’s just that simple.  Cheerleading for someone because they’re on “your team” is appropriate for a sporting event, not for political matters.  Political leaders deserve support only to the extent that their actions, on a case-by-case basis, merit that support, and that has largely been the behavior of progressives towards Obama.

There is but one Leader.

The Leader is infallible.

Criticism of The Leader is blasphemous.

We cannot always understand The Ways of The Leader, but we must have Absolute Faith in Him.

Those who have Absolute Faith in The Leader are Exalted.

Those who do not have Absolute Faith in The Leader are The Enemy.

Those who claim to support The Leader but lack Absolute Faith in Him are, at best, appeasers of The Enemy.

Those who claim to support The Leader but lack Absolute Faith in Him are, at worst Trolls Spies.

Those Who Work for The Leader are infallible.

Criticism of Those Who Work for The Leader is blasphemous.

All that is good emanates from the Doings of The Leader.

All that is not good is beyond The Leader’s control.

One of the best and most refreshing changes established by the Obama Administration has been its reliance on intellectuals, scientists, and experts rather than lobbyists and ideologues. Across a broad swath of federal departments, pragmatism seems once again to be valued. Unfortunately, with the world economy imploding, Obama continues to rely on the advice of corporatist insiders, and their advice is predictably corporatist. There also seems to be a bit of myopia going on.

On Saturday, Joan Walsh warned Obama supporters not to be taking credit for the previous week’s slight market rally:

As someone who has repeatedly defended Obama from GOP efforts to blame him for the current crisis and to deride the “Obama economy” only 55 days into his presidency, I think the administration could be playing a dangerous game. Live by the week’s economic news, die by it as well. If the Dow dives next week, or retail spending dips again, does that mean the stimulus failed?

Right on cue, Vice President Biden then weighed in:

“Consumer confidence is slightly up. The market is slightly up,” Biden said. “It’ll go down again, but the people are beginning to figure out that the president’s got a plan and he believes we can work our way through this.”

Um.

Nouriel Roubini has been warning that there may be “dead cat bounces,” or “bear market suckers rallies,” and there’s no reason to think the latest is anything else. Which means that Biden should maybe be a little more circumspect about taking a day trader’s view of a one week market rally.

Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, last week:

When Barack Obama becomes president, tomorrow, his first official act should be to ban torture. Nothing else would more clearly delineate the full and final break this nation is making from the legal and moral turpitude that was the Bush Administration. For logistical and practical reasons, Obama cannot immediately end the war or shut down Gitmo- although both must be done as quickly as is possible. He cannot immediately stop our economic free-fall. He cannot immediately begin to repair the possibly irreversible damage done by Bush to the environment. But he can ban torture. He can order all government entities that are in any way involved with torture to stop immediately. He can make clear that any government officials still involved with torture will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and possibly turned over to international officials for possible war crimes violations.

Corporate media and other Beltway types want Obama neither to end torture nor to prosecute the Bush officials who signed off on it. The law necessitates that he do both. And in this ostensible nation of laws, no one should be above the law. If we are, indeed, a nation of laws.

Last Friday, Big Tent Democrat wrote the following:

…the Beltway wants the torture policy of the Bush Administration swept under the rug and forgotten…

With all due respect to one of my favorite bloggers, I don’t think he goes far enough. The Beltway doesn’t just want Bush’s torture regime swept away and forgotten, it wants Obama to be complicit in it. Because the enabling of the Beltway and the corporate media made them complicit in it.

The best thing our newly inaugurated president can do, tomorrow, is to attempt to begin to establish a fundamental sense of moral and legal integrity in this nation. And to stop hurting people for no reason. As of tomorrow, solving and resolving all of Bush’s countless messes, crimes, and disasters becomes Barack Obama’s responsibility. Barack Obama’s first act as president should be to ban torture.