Wait, wait! I think I know this one.

RE: Changing his mind about releasing the torture detention photos (e.g., now he doesn’t want to)…

He’s President. He must know a lot more than we’re all being told about this. He sees the big picture and knows all the crap that’s going to come out in the wash over the next few weeks and months. And he can see that there’s only one outcome: prosecution of Bush administration lawyers and officials (Bybee and Yoo at the very minimum, Cheney at the max). Knowing that their prosecution is as near a certainty as one can get in this town, he’s positioning himself in a very safe spot. He will, at the end of the torture saga, be able to say that he defended moving on. He’ll be able to say to the electorate in 2012, “I did not want to go down that path.” But I think secretly he does, and he’s taken a position of shelter because he knows the Congressional Democrats are going to do all of the dirty work for him. Obama going after Bush would look proper. Or it definitely wouldn’t look like he brought a change to the culture in Washington. But this torture thing is meat & potatoes (or whatever the hippie, cow-friendly version is)  for Democrats. The issue will poll well for the Congressfolks and Senators back home (in the bluer districts, at least).

About the only thing left for Obama to do in this scenario is, at the point where it’s obvious to everyone that prosecutions are imminent or have already filed, say to America, “This is now our chance to show the rest of the world that we are once again listening to our better angels.”

Or something.