Obama is making a BIG mistake.

It’s one thing to state that the Bush Administration botched the interrogation methods. There is a strong case that their refusal to properly consider this a war and to promptly deal with war criminals led to a muddle over the handling of prisoners. Add to this the refusal of successive administrations of both parties to properly implement reprisals for the mistreatment of American POWs, and you have a recipe for some very hard-nosed attitudes.

But it is quite another to attempt to criminialize differences of policy. Democracy works only as long as the loser of an election knows that he may lose his job, but not his freedom or fortune. Obama is proposing to violate this.

But the CIA has the abiilty to hit back…and I would anticipate that there will be leaks about his administration’s dirty laundry over the next few weeks. This will not be a rerun of the Church Commission - that outfit may have investigated, but never prosecuted. Obama is proposing to cross that bound.

And is about to find out what a cornered intelligence service can really do.