A Christmas Pardon

How Obama can solve all his torture report problems in one fell swoop.

The release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture puts U.S. President Barack Obama in a tough spot, which may be why the White House worked so hard to delay, sanitize, and/or derail the report itself. Not only does it cast strong doubt on the wisdom of Obama's first-term decision to "look forward and not back" on the sorry legacy of Bush-era war crimes, but the evidence in the report suggests the United States is now obligated to prosecute the perpetrators or be in violation of the U.N. Convention on Torture (signed in 1988 by notorious anti-American activist Ronald Reagan). Indeed, today the New York Times editorial board called for Obama to begin a criminal investigation of these practices, up to and including former Vice President Dick Cheney....

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