Banana Republicans or will Cheney ride old sparky?

This week we were treated to Karl Rove warning us that the Obama Administration is acting like a third world dictatorship where military chiefs wear dark sunglasses. Karl says that Obama will systematically prosecute the Bush Administration officials for mere "policy differences". This meme was immediately echoed by Senator McCain and later by Senator Kit Bond. With the Republicans out of power, do you ever wonder where the talking points come from now? It seems old Turdblossom is still working the media and Republicans on the Hill with his old magic. Rove was caught out on Friday "tweetering talking points in defense of torture" to pundits and congressional offices.

John McCain's daughter Megan McCain said it best this week about the re-emergence of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney: "You had your eight years--go away!" How bad is it for the Republican Party? It has only a 23% approval rate and congressional Republicans have an approval rate of 15%, which is actually lower than Cheney's near the end. But what does Michael Steele do,just after his crushing defeat in the Tedisco election? He sends out a fund-raising letter about President Obama's "arrogance" and once again revisited the winning themes about Rev. Wright and Bill Ayres,the Weatherman who bombed the Pentagon when an angelic faced Barack Obama was riding waves on the back of his grandfather.

The Republican spinners were in full force this week even bringing back old war horses like Bill Bennett and introducing Cheney's daughter, who defended "enhanced interrogations" as saving thousands of lives. Liz Cheney has every right to defend her father but she should have left the whole issue of interrogation alone. Republicans circling around the wagon on the issue of torture is bound to lose as more revelations are about to unfold.

Andrew Sullivan wrote about the eloquent words used by the President who signed the Convention against Torture--Ronald Reagan. The Convention was ratified by the Republican Congress in 1994. During that time another conservative, one Newt Gingrich gave an eloquent argument against torture and forced confessions, when challenging the Chinese. How soon we forget. Embracing torture is not the way one asserts American exceptionalism unless it's Karl Rove's definition "We can do what we want."

It is unsettling in the least to have a major American political party deny what is so clearly obvious--that America did engage in torture. It is surreal to listen to arguments that we didn't torture but if we did then it was effective. What has gone unnoticed by Republicans is that President Obama has bent over backwards to avoid the prosecution of Bush officials--so much so that he is drawing serious heat from the left, human rights activists and the legal profession, which believes he must prosecute whoever violated the law. Republicans have missed an opportunity in not manning up on this issue and working with the present Administration to find a just way out of a messy situation.

Instead, President Obama is going to release the photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib. Technically, only required to release 40 photographs, at the request of General Petraeus, the Defense Department will be releasing 2,000 photos, which will show the sexual humiliation of prisoners and other abuses.

By the end of this week, memos by the Defense team that conducted the SERE program were released that showed they believed these techniques used constituted torture and they would not yield valuable information. In addition, it became quite clear that the lawyers for the armed forces had notified key lawyers involved in writing the torture memos of their doubts about the legality and constitutionality of the whole "enhanced interrogation" program. Moreover, it has become clear that these differences of opinions were purposely suppressed and in some cases the memos destroyed. According to United Nations Special Rapporteur Manfred Nowak, the lawyers are complicit in torture and therefore must be prosecuted.

John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham wrote an open letter--a certain way to make friends--to President Obama requesting he not prosecute the DOJ lawyers who wrote the torture memos. The Department of Justice under Eric Holder was already furious with the White House, especially Gibbs and Emmanuel, for making political statements who the Administration will not prosecute. This type of pressure from the Hill is going to provoke a more vigorous prosecution because the DOJ on this issue will not back down.

It's delightful seeing Obama playing the conservatives--forcing them to back the unthinkable and the unconscionable. Since he knows the productions coming off the line, the White House dictates the pace and tone of alot of these revelations. Dick Cheney's clumsy bid to have two memos declassified that, he claims, shows he is right was supported across the Republican spectrum and Fox News. But that also allows for the declassification of materials that demonstrate in greater detail why he is in error. I believe the smoking gun of this investigation will be the Office of Professional Responsibility report, which will document the degree to which the Torture Lawyers complied with requests from Dick Cheney to ratify the torture program while knowing of its illegality.

The more interesting issues yet to be handled concern the hundreds of homicides through the little Gulag we constructed as well as the accounting of the "disappeared" from the CIA "black sites". In the Arab world, these people are known as the "ghost prisoners". This events taken together should fuel enough public outrage as to force a more vigorous investigation and prosecutions.

Cheney and Rove have their own agenda forcing them out in the open on this subject. Cheney is probably trying to hide the degree to which tortured confessions created the mythical link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and the degree to which the Administration neglected to follow up on any information that could lead to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden. Karl Rove is part of the Bush legacy tour and he must spin these revelations to preserve whatever dignity the past Administration has. The alleged clash within the Obama Administration over the release of the torture memos was somewhat orchestrated by the former Administration and its stay behinds. One can visualize old Poppie calling up former CIA directors to get them to intercede.

But, why do the Republicans fall for it? Rove, Cheney, the Bush family are the past. There is little to gain politically to defend them and the public would be spared the pain of hearing defenses of torture. The proper line should be to take a more vigorous line for investigations and prosecution. The Obama Administration actually has to walk a tightrope because of national security concerns. Republicans can outflank the Administration by demanding a bipartisan commission to study torture and requesting the prosecution of all and any one involved in the situation.

Unfortunately, it will not happen since the Republicans have painted themselves in a corner which they simply can not get out of. We will get a continued line of barking dog talking heads, desparately trying to spin this issue, moving from line to line until they think they have found something that can stick. By doing this on something as serious as torture, they run the risk of forcing more information to emerge. And more of their kind to be charged.