The Gathering Storm

It was back in April that Attorney General Eric Holder memoed CIA employees, writing that "(i)t would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department." Apparently, his boss failed to read the memo.

Yesterday, Attorney General Holder backpeddled and reversed direction, announcing the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate so-called "CIA crimes" that took place in the aftermath of 9-11.

In doing so, he has opened up a firestorm that will consume many good employees at the CIA, the nation's early detection system against terrorist threats, and any shred of bipartisanship that may still exist in some dark corner of Washington. And, it may ultimately consume his boss along with it--much in the same way that Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter allowed their presidencies consumed by Vietnam, Watergate and Iran, respectively.

Let's review the timeline on how we got to this point in the first place:

1. The CIA's Inspector General commissioned the first investigation into allegations of prisoner torture early in George W. Bush's first term
   
2. The CIA supplied both houses of Congress with unedited copies of its investigative report in 2004
3. The Bush Administration turned over the IG's findings to the Justice Department for review to see if any further action was warranted
4. Justice Department career attorneys, not political appointees as the Obama administration would have us believe reviewed those findings
5. The Justice Department spent a great deal of time--in fact, years--investigating the allegations
6. After all that, DOJ brought only one case, that of a private contractor who had beaten a detainee who subsequently died
7. In December 2008 Carl Levin (D-Michigan), a relic of the 1970s, began calling on the incoming Obama administration to hold Stalinist-type show trials for Bush administration officials on the issue of CIA interrogation methods (see our post from December 29, 2009)
8. The ACLU sued for public release of the 2004 classified CIA report
9. Attorney General Holder in April, after looking into the matter, declines to investigate further
   
10. A court orders the Justice Department to release the CIA findings

But maybe we should take this chronology a little further...

1. The tall pole in the administration's tent--nationalized healthcare--begins to collapse in June in the face of the hard facts about healthcare
   
2. Polls in July show for the first time a majority of Americans oppose what has become known as "ObamaCare"
   
3. By August the President's once enormous popularity has been whittled down to about 50%
   
4. The President stumps for ObamaCare in the Rockies, but can't move the needle in the polls on healthcare
   
5. Mr. Obama high-tails it to Martha's Vineyard for vacation, removing himself from the national spotlight for a week till things die down a bit
   
6. Eric Holder announces appointment of the special prosecutor to investigate the allegations of CIA-inspired "torture"
   

Nothing in Washington politics happens by accident. The timing of all this could not have been orchestrated better. Mr. Obama disappears, leaving a news void. A story that is five years old reappears on the front page, replacing daily coverage of angry Americans opposed to the President's healthcare plan. Opposition to ObamaCare cools a bit. The President's leftist base, a small but vocal minority, is appeased and re-energized to fight the final battle for healthcare when Congress returns from its summer recess.

But this could be a fatal misstep. Mr. Obama's political instincts, lauded so greatly during the campaign, have deserted him, much as the instincts of Lyndon Johnson, one of the greatest political minds of our time, deserted him during Vietnam. Mr. Obama is as out of touch with the public as President Johnson was in the 1960s. Like Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Carter, Mr. Obama is ill-served by a cadre of career Beltway advisers for whom governance is a board game, not public service. 

Mr. Obama fashions himself as a modern day Lincoln. But perhaps his antecedents are a lot closer than he thinks--three men in succession in the 1960s and '70s. Three men who, frankly, outpaced him in intelligence, experience, and instinct. And while they were Mr. Obama's betters, they engineered their own downfalls by failing to escape storms that they themselves started. 

Just thought you might like to know.