on bananas and witches

sure, because banana republics are notorious for their zealous prosecution of torture.

sarcasm aside, i understand why having a new administration come in and use the power of the state to settle scores against members of the prior regime is a bad precedent. but the bush administration record of legalizing torture is a bad precedent too. there needs to be an accounting for this. on top of that, the u.s. is legally required to pursue torture allegations. not pursuing what the bush administration did would itself be illegal.

put another way, a "witch hunt" is bad because there are no witches (or at least there were none in the satan worshipping sense that the folks of salem thought). someone engages in a "witch hunt" when they smear innocent people with baseless charges. in this case, there's a real basis for the charges and the people involved seem far from innocent.