Willful blindness

Dan Froomkin notices the odd urge of our elite pundits to call for forgiveness and forgetting rather than investigations on the use of torture.

Now, a seemingly endless and horrifying series of revelations has unleashed an intense public reaction -- while at the same time calling attention to all that we still don't know. And with Barack Obama as president -- despite his own reluctance to "look backward," as he puts it -- serious inquiry into what happened seems a distinct possibility.

There is an obvious partisan aspect to the current debate, as Republican leaders have fallen in lockstep behind the former Bush officials defending torture as legal and necessary. But it doesn't need to be that way. And I suspect that as we learn more -- and as the defense of clearly repugnant and illegal acts becomes more of a political loser -- Republicans will choose not to allow Bush-era torture to define their party.

That would leave a motley -- and yet still consequential -- alliance of the directly and indirectly culpable as the final defenders of torture know-nothingism. That group includes not only former administration officials and members of the intelligence community, but the political and media leaders -- Republican and Democrat alike -- who chose acquiescence over outrage and were a key part of keeping the torturers' secrets for so long.

Eventually, Dick Cheney will get his wish and we are going to get a full and nausiating picture of what was done to "protect the American people." After five years of hints and glimpses, we'll no longer be able to ignore it.