On Sep 11, 2011, at 10:46 AM, Julio Huato wrote:
> I wrote in reply to Jordan:
>
>> Richard Clarke is a guy like any of us here. He can be --
>> you know -- fearful of revenge by those who may feel
>> affected by the insistence and volume of his speculations.
>>
>> By the way, contra Carrol and others who believe the guy
>> is deftly accomplishing his actual goals, Obama's political
>> behavior as president could be similarly explained. Xe
>> Services and people like that can be scary. That said, I
>> admit it is very hard to establish empirically the plausibility
>> of explanations of this type. I'm not making any assertion,
>> but we should consider these factors as well.
>
> It seems that Christopher Edley, Jr, who was a member of Obama's
> transition team, is giving some validation to my conjecture. This is
> now circulating on the web:
>
> http://www.justice-integrity.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=460:obama-team-feared-coup-death-if-he-prosecuted-war-crimes&catid=44:myblog
>
> Here's the short link:
In other words, a president's power is constrained by enduring institutional structures.
But given that Obama has kept Gitmo open, continued all the rendition policies, and intensified the prosecution of leakers (how about that conviction the other day of an FBI translator for crimes that were not disclosed to the judge?), why would anyone think that he'd have wanted to prosecute his predecessors? It would be a bad precedent for his successors, among other things.
Doug