And Now, Show Trials? UPDATED

Obama is letting more and more of his despicable totalitarian impulses show. Now he has opened the door to prosecution of those who approved waterboarding and other high pressure interrogation tactics against terrorism. The Wall Street Journal this morning has rightly dubbed Obama’s invitation as presidential poison. Legitimate disagreement over national defense policies, including difficult ethical decisions, is one thing. Criminalizing those disagreements is the noxious stuff of totalitarianism.

The people upon which Obama has declared open season were striving to do their jobs in protecting America from further terrorist attacks. And they succeeded, with the interrogation tactics playing an important role in that success.

(And, yes, I do think waterboarding terrorists was justified and ethical. Thousands of civilian lives were at stake. And terrorists, by targeting civilians, forfeit normal protections, such as the Geneva Convention.)

And now, a lightweight with messianic pretensions who can’t bring himself to stop campaigning and blaming all the world’s problems on his predecessors has opened the door to rewarding that service with show trials. It is disgusting and more worthy of the old Soviet Union and of third world dictatorships than of the United States of America.

What goes around comes around. Obama had best backtrack and fast. Or his poison will spread as the WSJ warns and backfire.

And show trials have a history of not going as planned in this country. Remember Oliver North?

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UPDATE: Sen. John McCain, who has strenuously opposed enhanced interrogation techniques, warns against “witch hunts” worthy of “banana republics” that “prosecute people for actions they didn’t agree with under previous administrations.”