Richard Haas explains why going forward with a special prosecutor or a truth commission on "torture" is a dumb idea.
In so doing, he relates his own experiences with these sorts of political and poisonous investigations. Very interesting.

My own bet is President Obama will ultimately shoot down any such effort. He's a smart guy and he knows that such an investigation would end up embarrassing many Democrats - Nancy Pelosi for one - and distract the country from the important business at hand. It would also have great ramifications for future administrations and our national security. The left will continue to howl for prosecutions but that's what the left does.

Obama has given them more red meat to chew on by releasing the legal memos regarding harsh interrogations, but every time he talks about the issue, he screws it up more.

His citing Winston Churchill and the British during WWII as refusing to "torture" is simply not historically accurate. His claim that while harsh interrogations during the Bush administration led to actionable intelligence to prevent attacks, they were not necessary because the same information could have been gotten by other means, is completely unsupported conjecture.

He has so far refused to release documents that the former vice president says will show the effectiveness of some of these interrogations. Given that 71 percent of the American people believe that "torture" is "rarely, sometimes, or often" justified to prevent attacks this is an political argument he could very well lose in the court of public opinion.

Which is why, he will shut it down before it bites him and his party in the neck.