I'm a pessimist on these matters. I think that Obama is only slightly less bad than Bush was. I think that idealist supporters of Obama are in for a rude surprise. He wants to increase defense spending and significantly increase the size of the US military. Warlord Obama isn't going to match up to his followers' fantasy of a peace-loving man. I just wish that people treated Obama with the same skepticism that they treated McCain. The same people who could clearly see McCain's failings were blinded by some kind of idealized version of Obama to see Obama's problems too.

And now of course, Obama is threatening to not inform the British of impending terrorist attacks if a British court describes Binyam Mohamed's torture. Hopefully that will show the idealists the real Obama, but probably not. At least we don't have McCain in office. That's about the only thing giving me solace in all this.

The photos should be released to show exactly what happened. Yes, we'll have to deal with the fallout with the Muslim nations, but that's the price of being torturers. It's not better to sweep this under the carpet! Obama just pissed me off again. 

 I'm far from an idealist supporter of Obama, but I've got two things that give me a certain amount of hope on this issue.

1. I've read the Torture memos.

2. Obama was a professor of Constitutional Law.  I'm guessing he's read them, too.

The gist of the torture memos is as follows:

"We {various legal consultants} have determined that it is extremely unlikely that you could be successfully prosecuted under U.S. law for the activities you wish to engage in, and we believe it extremely unlikely that you will be subject to legitimate threat of extradition for international trial."

Obama, I presume, concurs with the conclusions in the torture memos, and realizes that if he brings these folks to trial, he's going to lose, and the U.S. will lose all hope of credibility internationally, and he'll have lost the biggest battle of his presidency.  Instead of trying to fix the economy -- which, by the way, is really fucking important right now -- he'll be embroiled in the biggest fiasco since the OJ trial, only every nation in the world will be spitting on us when we let off all the torturers.

Since we're on the subject of idealism, which one of you folks believes you could come up with an ideal solution to this problem while being hounded from all sides by at least a hundred different lobby groups, political action committees, international envoys, and diplomats from every major country in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Great Frozen North?

Obama's in an impossible position, and there simply aren't a lot of options that would result in him or America looking good in the end.  I don't think he's the greatest president in the history of the world, but I think it's probably important to view his decisions from the capital hill perspective, not the armchair world leader perspective.

The problem is there is no real expert on economics. Yes, there are people that study and try to understand it...but there are so many flavors of ideas on how economies function and what should be done, that you could drown in them.

If there really was someone who could just go "Here is the fix" then that would make everyone's time a lot easier.

 Et Tu, Lelouch?

Because... you're an expert in American law?

Look, I'm not an expert on American law, either, but I'm familiar with the way the American legal system is set up, and I've had several instances where I've been in court where I was clearly and unequivocably in the right -- morally -- and lost because of legaleze and technicalities.

That's the way the system's set up, and you of all people, Mr. America is so fucked up, shouldn't assume that the legal system is designed to allow politicians to be punished for crimes.  Who do  you think set up the legal system, and do you really think they were stupid?

While it would be morally right, it would also likely subvert the legal system.  Do you want Obama to do exactly the same thing Bush did?  Take the law and throw it out the window whenever he wants to?

 The photos have been leaked.  I'm suggesting that Obama was posing, knowing the photos would be released anyway.  I'm suggesting that he is a professor of law and well qualified to know whether or not the U.S. legal system has a chance of successful prosectution, and that he's putting up the appropriate "I tried to help" facade while doing what he can to facilitate future prosecution from the outside.

I recall no such promises or even hints of promises.

I fully admit that I'm possibly being naive about this, but I'm really trying to figure out what I would do if I wanted to affect justice but was stuck in the American political system.  It seems to me that the real comic book scenario is succeeding in publicly indicting, trying, convicting, and punishing a former president and his cronies who together control or influence those who have control of more than 3% of the GDP of the United States.

These people have a LOT of power, and a lot of friends in very high places all over the world.  (Have you ever read "American Dynasty"?)  At most, maybe Obama could get a few scapegoats from the middle levels of the torture fiasco, but I just don't see how he has a choice in this matter.  

Or, perhaps he's a decent man who's caught in a system that prevents him from doing the decent thing.  Even if there is no secret plan, it might well be that Obama has been informed the consequences of pursuing these people, and they were too steep for him to accept.

I suppose you could call that a "hint."  I didn't take it that way when he said it.  I figured he meant transparency in his administration, not opening up records from a previous one.  I certainly didn't hear or read everything he said, though.  I'm only speaking of my own experience and interpretation.

Some professors are lecture professors.  The two are not mutually exclusive.