Axelrod: We Can't Afford To Get "Bogged Down" In Bush Investigation Debate

Remarks made by Obama senior adviser David Axelrod on Monday provide the clearest indication to date that the White House is not only uninterested in pursuing investigations of Bush officials involved in torture but views them as a distraction from a larger governing agenda.

Speaking before the Religious Action Center, a Reform Judaism advocacy organization, Axelrod warned against re-litigating the past, arguing that the current White House didn't need such a distraction when it already had so much on its plate.

"The president believes strongly that we need to be looking forward," said Axelrod. "If he had not banned these [interrogation techniques] there would be a different case to be made here. But these practices are a thing of the past. What this should not become is a forum for re-litigating these issues apropos to the last administration and some of the policy makers there, because we have too much work to do to become bogged down in that debate. That's the feeling."

The remarks, which Axelrod acknowledged would come as a disappointment to the largely progressive crowd, are a step further than the Obama White House has largely been willing to go on the issue of investigating the Bush years.

The president himself has said that if illegalities were proven it would be the obligation of his Justice Department to investigate and/or prosecute them. And while, also on Monday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stated the president's preference for moving "the country forward" he did not, like Axelrod, qualify why it was that Obama was disinclined to look back.

"The President does believe and the Attorney General said quite clearly that those that believed in good faith that these techniques had been declared legal by the Department of Justice should not be prosecuted," Gibbs explained.

Indeed, the line from the White House, especially in wake of the release of the Bush-era torture memos, has been to stress that those techniques have now been outlawed and pivot to another question. Axelrod tried the line too, stressing that the president closed this "dark chapter in our history" by shutting down Guantanamo Bay and ending the practice of torture. Forgoing investigations, he added, was not an easy one to make, as evident by the four weeks of consultation Obama took to evaluate the matter.

"We do have real threats in the world and a national security apparatus that has to confront those threats every single day," Axelrod added. "And what [Obama] has said is he does not believe we should prosecute those people who were told that these [techniques] were with the legal parameters for interrogation, and then go back and say, 'You know what, they really weren't, so now you are going to be prosecuted.'"

Comments

[ImpressedByHonesty]

And sure we shouldn't investigate if our house was burglarized, and we can point the perp out right there across the street sneering, and lock him up. We'd get bogged down taking the cops with us across the street.

[Jim Burrows]

Any politician could have made the statements that have been dribbling out of the White House lately. They are riddled with political expediency and doublespeak. Let me help you.
Gays in the military. We don’t care. We know they are doing their jobs and the damn panty waist generals will do what they are told. Either that or they will simply fade away. So keep your word. It is the only political capital you have.
Iraq? We are leaving. Tell Gates to draw up the plan. You want weekly segments of American troops on planes for home starting in MAY. Give those kids some time at home before they have to go back and cleanup Afghanistan. And if Iran thinks they can attack a weakened Iraq remind them of what Dresden looked like. And remind them that there is a reason we give Israel a billion dollars a year.

[freelyb]

Yes, there is no way Congress would be able to avoid considerable fallout if we really dug into this mess. The 2010 elections will be important. Gotta do something about campaign financing.

[Rule Of Law]

And once more now that we are safely past the cycle--and with the requisite short bus spellings--

Telling the Knotzis that gassing Jooos is a thing of the past and asking everyone to move on...

I wonder how that would have played in post WW2 , and if Mr. Axelrod would agree with it in that context?

[eciaccio]

Sorry, Axelrod. You are consumately WRONG. "Governing" MUST include following the law. Article 4 of the Convention Against Torture, which the U.S. signed and, therefore, which every President is required to obey (see "The Supremacy Clause" of the U.S. Constitution), REQUIRES the President to convene a criminal investigation into the torture crimes of the Bush era (error?). Government officials, from Lynndie England and CIA operatives who tortured prisoners to Bush, are NOT above the law. Who the hell does Obama think he is, another emperor like Bush, who disregarded the law? Americans who elected Obama wanted accountability after 8 years of lawlessness, not a cover-up of Bush's crimes. If Obama won't do it, and if he prevents his Attorney General from prosecuting these war crimes, then Obama is no better than the war criminals of the Bush regime.

[FreetoBme]

Please note the comments of Freelyb above.
The 2010 elections are extremely important.
We must get the 60 seats before trying anything like that.
President Obama is NOT a dictator, and well he knows that.

[jane gutowski]

i just saw gibbs sort of saying obama is open to prosecution of these torture claims. its always hard to understand gibbs because he talks in doublespeak so that he actually says nothing but your head hurts so bad listening to him it doesnt matter anymore.he said obama said noone is above the law but he wants to move forward and that could mean obama is caving into the far left pressure on him to criticize America even more and allow Feingold and Feinstein more air time to lecture about how moral they are compared to American policies.

[vet64]

Israel is the only one who benefits from the refusal to prsoecute. Obama doesn't want investigations because it'll bring out that Israel is pulling Washingtons puppet strings via the Neo Con owned Conglomerates. Treason!

[Bitsko]

Uh, yeah sure...

[EagleFliesInSky]

Please, you're giving me a headache.

[p-junkie]

I was just watching the President's comments. If there are prosecutions they will be narrowed to the people who 'formulated' (his word) the legal avenues to torture rather than those who carried out the torture under the authority of the Bush White House.

Of course that doesn't address the allegation that those lawyers may have been ORDERED by the Bush Administration to come up with a way to 'make the laws' work FOR them.

[bbmill37]

I'm sure Valerie Plame is glad we just "moved forward" and nothing was done about Cheney & his crowd costing her her career. The scapegoat they picked to take the blame is walking free today, as are the rest of them. And the illegal wiretapping ....... forget about it, we're MOVING FORWARD. So what if we got a little info on the 39th waterboarding, we just MOVED FORWARD and did it 144 more times because we got such a kick out of it. Remember folks, this was done in YOUR NAME and MINE. We are seen as the occupiers, terrorists and torturers of the free world. If you were waterboarded 183 times, would you feel very kindly to your captors if you ever got out? So what if they lied to us about WMD's and then we had to watch the Resident Cowboy laugh as he searched around the Oval Office for them. That was done in our name, too. If I hear MOVE FORWARD one more time I'm going to scream. YOU CAN'T MOVE FORWARD IF YOU DON'T CLEAN UP THE PAST. DO NOT TAKE THE HEAT OFF THEM!!!!!!!

[jmyoung666]

I posted under the Obama headline as well, but it is possible that the previous statements out of the administration were designed to provoke just such a response as we have seen here. This may be a case of them trying to get the public to hold the administration's feet to the fire so that the administration can defuse at least some of the political ramifications of the investigation. "It's not us, it's the will of the people."

[Yellowbird]

Tsk Tsk. Let's see, you can't tell a torturer that green is not blue and take that statement back when it is settled that green is green.

Why does nobody mention it behooves every citizen of this great nation to KNOW their Constitution and their history?

Even though my poor kid had to go to L.A. City Schools in S. Calif, I managed to augment his education with my own library skills and teaching. It was obvious to me that my education in the 1960's was superior to that which is taught today, so I augmented his education.

There is simply NO EXCUSE for anyone to be uninformed. In fact if there is, then why can't every robber or drug user or criminal of any kind, say to the judge, "I didn't know it was against the law! I was not well educated enough to know the law!" If we let this slide, every criminal in prison should be released. They simply were misinformed.

[mikatollah]

No need to get "bogged down" in an investigation of Bush crimes. Assign it to the justice department and then refuse to comment on an on-going investigation... Dubya was the master of this technique.

[p-junkie]

It sure is a tough call to make for the Obama Administration but I have to agree with Axelrod. Such trials would literally suck the oxygen out of this country in a time of crisis.

The Bush people should thank their lucky stars that we are in this financial crisis, otherwise their butts might hit the pavement, hard.

[bilmardre]

Their butts still might hit the pavement hard. President Obama knows that to go after the previous administration with criminal charges would, under normal circumstances, be an extraordinary thing which has never before occurred in our history. Add to that the divide that exists in this country and the fact that there are terrorist out there plotting to kill us, and just for good measure there is a opposition party that has no integrity and never met the lie they were not willing to spin no matter how outrageous, and you have a recipe for chaos.
Having said that, I believe that the president is still pursuing a strategy that will see justice done AND give him the chance to fulfill the obligations he made to the American people. If you listen carefully to what he says, I think you can hear that. And if you believe all those goals are worthy, he can use your support.

[Doremus1]

Can Bush-Cheney claims of "mistakes were made" be far behind?

Special Prosecutor. Truth. Justice. ( Humility)

The American Way.

[veritasor]

they are all crooks...