Obama Rejected Idea of Interrogation Inquiry

More details are emerging from the Obama camp's debate on how to handle the Bush interrogation memos. In the Washington Post, Dan Balz writes that President Obama rejected the idea of setting up an investigation panel along the lines of the 9/11 Commission. Obama wanted to move on rather than drag out a never-ending investigation under the auspices of the White House.

"His concern was that would ratchet the whole thing up," said an anonymous senior official. "His whole thing is, 'I banned all this. This chapter is over. What we don't need now is to become a sort of feeding frenzy where we go back and re-litigate all this.'" Now, of course, Obama finds himself under siege from both the left and right. "With this latest controversy, he is learning that neither the opponents nor the defenders of Bush's presidency are ready to move on," writes Balz. (More President Obama stories.)