NYT: Obama might not be able to avoid torture inquiry

From "Pressure Grows to Investigate Interrogations" on Tuesday's front page:

Mr. Obama said it was time to admit “mistakes” and “move forward.” But there were signs that he might not be able to avoid a protracted inquiry into the use of interrogation techniques that the president’s top aides and many critics say crossed the line into torture.

Gosh, I hope that's correct. They don't usually go predicting the future ("signs that he might not be able to avoid") just on a whim. I'm not sure, though, that the reporting in the article quite proves the thesis. But hopefully they know what they're talking about.

The best part is near the end of the article:

Others pushing for more investigation included Philip D. Zelikow, the former State Department counselor in the Bush administration. On his blog for Foreign Policy magazine and in an interview, Mr. Zelikow said it was not up to a president to rule out an inquiry into possible criminal activity. “If a Republican president tried to do this, people would be apoplectic,” he said.

This gets to what I wrote earlier -- about the politicization of the Justice Department. That's what we'd call it if it were a Republican president. No different if it's a Democrat.