Clear-eyed on the costs of prosecuting the torturers

A reader writes into Andrew Sullivan with a theory on Obama's real position on prosecuting torture:

I’m sorry, but President Obama is going to break your heart on this one. He is not playing some long game, rope-a-dope, clever strategy which will allow him to ultimately expose Bush’s war crimes and prosecute them. In fact, he is going to do everything he can to squash all of this.

Imagine what such prosecutions would entail: years of courtroom drama, depositions, lawsuits and counter-suits; the long parade of powerful and high ranking ex- and current members of government, including a goodly number of Democrats, being called on the carpet and having to testify against one another; the enormous rancor and bitterness. This would be Watergate on steroids. And imagine the shot in the arm this would give the zombified Limbaugh Right.

The prosecutions you are asking for would simply swallow the Obama presidency whole. It is the kind of energy draining, oxygen consuming drama that is the nightmare of every president. It would come to define his presidency in the same way the Hostage Crisis defined Carter’s and there is zero chance he will opt for this.

President Obama is making a realistic, cold, clear-eyed cost-benefit analysis. This is the choice: Does he fix the economy, fix healthcare, get a handle on the two wars he’s dealing with, or does he prosecute Bush era war crimes? He has chosen his agenda and is asking us to choose that to.

I pretty much agree with this. Politics comes down to choosing- allocating resources. The main resource a President has is time and public attention. Obama can spend it on his agenda, or on prosecuting the torturers. I'd like to see these guys get their comeuppance too, but not at the cost of flushing Obama's agenda. It's easy and noble-sounding to pipe up about the paramount importance of the rule of law- and for the most part I agree with that. However, right now- nobody's torturing- because the good guys won the last election, and last I checked the dead-enders in the GOP who are supporting torture are polling at about 20%. They may be loud, but their strategy is being discredited as we speak.

The surest way to bring torture policies back to the US? An epic fail of Obama's programs that brings Sarah Palin to power in 2012.