What will he do?

I remain cautiously optimistic that Obama will be our next President. Perhaps "optimism" is the wrong word, "desperately hopeful" might be more accurate. In a fair election, there is no way that Obama could lose. No way. But, of course, we haven't had fair elections in awhile and all of us know that Republicans will do anything up to and including an attack on Iran, in which case all bets are off. So the question really is, how much ability do the Republicans have to steal this election? The Democrats are wiping the floor with the Republicans in terms of fund-raising, and the same with our turn out for the primaries, and I think both these factors could negate any black box shenanigans or Swiftboating the Republicans might try. This really is looking like the election that sane people were hoping for in 2004, the one where the electorate, having seen 4 years of Bush would say, "No way, Jose!" and vote for ANYONE other than that chimp-faced loser. Okay, so it took 4 more years and our country on the brink of ruin, but the vast majority appears to have figured it out. Add to that the fact that our candidate is young, handsome, articulate, intelligent and very charismatic, while theirs is, well, the opposite on all counts.

I do not know if there are enough sane people in the State Department and the Pentagon who are able to prevent Cheney and The Chimp from attacking Iran. We are all going to have to live with that uncertainty until one of two things happens: a) Our guy moves into the White House on January 21, 2009 or b) they attack Iran.

So, barring an attack on Iran, I feel reasonably confidant that Obama will win. That said, I've been waiting for, and was glad to see, this. As Digby notes, it's not nearly enough:

I also find Obama's answer unsettling. I'm glad he has agreed to have his Attorney General look into the matter. But setting the bar that high --- that they had to "knowingly and consciously" violate the law --- means that there will be no investigation and they will probably be exonerated. The Yoo memos were written for that very reason, after all. (Powell is already using the excuse that they were operating under official DOJ legal findings.)

I don't think it's useful to mention the difference between lawbreaking and "really dumb policies" in the context of torture. Torture is clearly not a dumb policy, it's an illegal and immoral policy. And at this point there's really no doubt that the Principals sat around the white house discussing how to torture prisoners. Regardless of whether they can excuse their behavior because some authoritarian hack in the Justice Department told them it was ok --- it was not ok.

In my effort to remain cautiously optimistic - or just this side of suicidal, depending on which way the wind is blowing - I choose to give Obama the benefit of the doubt and think that he is possibly stepping gingerly around this issue for the purpose of not terrifying "moderates" and winning this goddam election, after which the Sidney Poitier persona comes off, revealing the Marsellus Wallace persona lurking just beneath the surface who goes all medieval on those Republican asses! (H/T heydave) There, I feel better now.