Jake Tapper grills Gibbs on Obama’s flip flop:

TAPPER: Is the president of the belief, or in possession of information, that members of the Bush administration who formulated these interrogation policies broke the law?

GIBBS: I — again, I think I’d point you to the comments that the president made today that a determination of who — of whether a law was broken or who broke a law was not a determination that would be made inside the confines of the White House. It would rightly be made inside the confines of the Justice Department.

TAPPER: I would be the fourth of four that has pointed out that there is at least some rhetorical change between what the administration has said in the past on this question of prosecution and what the president said today. And I’m just wondering what change?

GIBBS: The president was clear and I would go with what…

TAPPER: He hasn’t used language like that in the past. He hasn’t said…

GIBBS: Well, I — I — I don’t — I think the president — and we’ll pull it for you specifically. I mean…

TAPPER: We’ve all read it.

GIBBS: Excellent, we’re ahead of the game. Never mind. I — I think when the president states that people are above the rule of law that he expects that the laws of the United States of America will be upheld.

TAPPER: But has he — I guess the question is: Has he learned anything since those previous comments that make his language…

(CROSSTALK)

GIBBS: Not that I’m aware of. No.

— jpt

I’d venture to guess what the president learned was that his supporters on the left were furious with his previous statements regarding prosecution.