HOLD THAT HOLDER - AT 7:07 P.M. ET:  Former Vice President Cheney remains unrelenting in his opposition to the CIA probes announced last week by Attorney General Eric Holder.  We should point out that these are sometimes called "investigations" in the media.  They are not.  They are re-investigations.  The same issues were reviewed years ago by career prosecutors in the Justice Department and found, with one exception, not ripe for prosecution.  From Fox News:

Calling it a "terrible decision" that undermines national security and devastates CIA morale, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed the Obama administration's probe of aggressive interrogation of terrorists.

"It's an outrageous political act that will do great damage, long-term, to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say," Cheney told "FOX News Sunday" in a no-holds-barred interview.

In blunt, unsparing language, Cheney accused President Obama of setting a "terrible precedent" by allowing an "intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration."

Even a Democratic senator, Diane Feinstein of California, raised objection:

“I think the timing of this is not very good,” Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” She said her panel is studying interrogation techniques, and suggested Holder should allow that work to continue without appointing a special prosecutor. “Candidly, I wish the attorney general had waited,” she said.

COMMENT:  But he won't wait because Eric Holder is the administration's chief enforcer of leftist doctrine.  He has stuffed the Justice Department with liberal activists.  We were told that President Obama left the decision on whether to open the probe to Holder.  That, of course, is nonsense.  The president could have ordered Holder not to probe further because of the very damage that former Vice President Cheney speaks about. 

Of course this is political.  Obviously.  How else can Holder explain a decision to reinvestigate what has already been investigated.  How would you like to be a CIA agent in the field right now?

And remember, the zealots behind this new probe also want to investigate the lawyers who gave the Bush administration their best advice on the subject of interrogations, with a possible eye toward disbarring them.  This is a politicization of law that is utterly chilling in a democracy.  You can practice law, the inquisitors seem to be saying, as long as we agree with you.

August 30, 2009