Obama and Democrats' Torture Problem
U.S. News & World Report
By Kenneth T. Walsh
Posted May 22, 2009
When Pelosi said she had nothing else to say on the matter did that mean she wouldn't be talking about torture again?
U.S. News & World Report
By Kenneth T. Walsh
Posted May 22, 2009
Some of Obama's supporters are urging the Justice Department to prosecute policymakers who wrote legal opinions authorizing the controversial methods. But word has leaked that a preliminary inquiry at Justice concludes that, while the authors of those memos showed poor judgment, they should not be criminally prosecuted because giving bad advice is not illegal.
Other options, such as congressional hearings to determine if there was wrongdoing, could prove just as divisive. Sixty-two percent of Americans oppose such hearings, according to a poll in late April by CBS News and the New York Timesincluding 89 percent of Republicans, 60 percent of independents, and 51 percent of Democrats. On the issue of torture itself, the country is split. Forty-nine percent of Americans support Obama's position that the United States should not use torture, but 48 percent say there are cases in which the United States "should consider torture against terrorism suspects," according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll.