This, sadly, does not surprise me:

Barack Obama’s incoming administration is unlikely to bring criminal charges against government officials who authorized or engaged in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists during the George W. Bush presidency. Obama, who has criticized the use of torture, is being urged by some constitutional scholars and human rights groups to investigate possible war crimes by the Bush administration.

Two Obama advisers said there’s little - if any - chance that the incoming president’s Justice Department will go after anyone involved in authorizing or carrying out interrogations that provoked worldwide outrage.

Every time the discussion about this comes up, someone, probably many someones, is telling Obamam not to do this. They are telling him that if he does this, he will never get anything done in his first term. The Republicans will go completely apesh*t and defend their brethren with all their might. They will do everything humanly possible to keep his appointments tied up and to kill his legislation. The David Broders of the world will spend their column inches and pixels bemoaning how fall down the partisan rabbit hole and oh isn’t a shame that the Obama is trying to put people in jail who only wanted to help their country. Democratic leaders — some of who were too scared to stand up to Bush when they found out what he was doing and some of whom were too scared to exercise the oversight they should have — will be similarly, if more quietly, working to undermine the investigations. Lieberman will do everything humanly possible form stopping the inquiries, and since he apparently is going to keep his chairmanship, that would probably be quite a lot.

And going after torturers, Obama is being told, is surely a political loser. It will make him look vindictive, they say, and even soft on terrorists. And they may be right. I don;t think they are — I don’t think, outside of the radical right wing loons that there is a constituency for torture. I think that eventually, Obama would look good for having the courage to cleanse the country of the stain of it. I think that a full airing of the details would repulse peopel and turn the practitioners and order givers into pariahs. I think that Obama would have a much easier time getitng Republicans, worried about 2010, to go along with his plans.

But it would not be easy. There is no vocal, elite constituency opposed to the police state tendencies in our government and out nation. The FISA bill proved that. The NY Times and Fox News and the Washington Post all spoke with one voice on that matter, and I suspect they would speak with one voice on investigating torturers and the men who ordered the torture: no. Until that changes, bringing those people to justice will be difficult and I can see why a cautious person would think that ending the practices would be sufficient and that justice wold not be worth the cost of everything else on his agenda. Especially if there were many, many critical issues needing immediate attention.

It is still wrong, but it is not surprising. Until the elite culture is changed, until we force the default security posture in this country away form the twin notions of Empire and “kill them all and let God sort them out”, we are very poorly positioned to bring these people to justice. The political cost will always be seen as too high.