Perplexed: So Does This Mean Obama Does Want a Truth Commission?
Daphne? Can you help me understand something?
I thought from President Obama’s answer to Sam Stein’s question at his press conference last month that he was lukewarm on Sen. Pat Leahy’s (D-Vt.) efforts to establish a truth commission for Bush-era abuses. But then why release all these Office of Legal Counsel memos that indicate deeper abuses took place than most of us expected? Today the Senate Judiciary Committee is exploring the contours of such a commission, and the release of the OLC memoranda can only fuel the political dynamics for establishing one.
So is Obama playing some kind of inside-outside game by releasing the memos? That is, he publicly indicates his antipathy to a commission, professes a desire to move on, but feeds the Senate Dems what they need to empanel a commission — and lets them take the heat when Republicans inevitably bray about a witch hunt? Or am I misunderstanding this?