Don't Look Back!

Today's edition of Today's Papers has a lot on the Senate investigating committee findings about torture. There's a lot of "what did he know?" talk about former Secretary of State Colin Powell. But I think the most interesting point is made in passing. President Obama is being forced to deal with a mess created by his predecessor.

President Obama is fond of saying we shouldn't be looking backwards; we should be looking to the future. There are a lot of dimensions to that kind of talk, but one of the big ones is that Obama wants to work on his own priorities; he doesn't want George W. Bush to impose his priorities on an Obama administration. But that's just what's happening with the torture issue, the Office of Legal Counsel issue, the whole package that was driven by George Bush's obsession with 9/11, and his determination to extract payment from someone for those dark events.

I suppose it would be unrealistic to expect that the Obama administration could just ignore something into which the Bush administration put so much brainpower, manpower, and energy for seven years. So does Obama first have to work for seven years to marry the ugly sister, and only then be able to marry the one he wants?

Let's hope the one he gets doesn't turn into a pillar of salt.