Looks like Obama's finally starting to play realpolitik.

Since the Republicans seem to be feeling frisky about taking on the president over health care, I guess Obama's got no choice but to go forward with the DOJ's torture investigation.

I mean, the evidence is piling up that the Bush administration broke the law and is guilty of war crimes. Obama didn't want to investigate...he wanted to look forward, not backward...but, well, what can he do? His hands are tied. This is Holder's call. The man's a professional. He can't look the other way when there's this much evidence of wrong-doing.

God knows, he'd really like to help the outgoing administration, but, you know, even Bush had to throw Scooter Libby overboard to keep the sharks at bay.

I don't know.

The thing is, we've got some legislation we'd really like to get passed. Getting entangled in a long, drawn-out investigation of the Bush administration isn't in anybody's best interest.

I don't know.

Maybe if you guys could call off your goons on this healthcare thing, I don't know, maybe the president could see what he can do to, you know, slow down the investigation. Or keep the focus off the higher-ups who put the torture regime into place. Draw the thing out, obfuscate the issues a little bit, you know, bore people to death with legal higglety-piggley. Throw a little dirt in the umpire's face.

You know what I mean.

And you could still do your bread and butter stuff, with the birth certificate and the socialism and the waving-your-guns-around.

I don't know. I mean, I don't know how much suction you Bush guys even have with the Republican Party anymore. I mean, with Michael Steele running the show, whew; who can control that brilliant son of a bitch? Maybe you can't stop Limbaugh and Beck and Hatch and Boehner, either. To say nothing of Sarah the Barracuda. They might all want to throw you under the bus even more than we do.

But look. Reach out to your people. See if there might be somebody over there who might like to talk. We know you're planning to squeeze the Blue Dogs - and God knows there's nothing those boys like better than gnawing on steak bones from the money table.

But we've got a way of dealing with the Blue Dogs, too. They want to vote like Republicans, well, let 'em see how they like running as Republicans in '10. Cuz it's like your boy said: You're either for us or against us. And if they f*ck us on this, believe me: we're gonna f*ck them so hard their grandmothers will feel it.

But, like I said, nobody wants to go nuclear over this thing. There might still be some wiggle room. Nobody wants to see an ex-president and vice president of the United States of America being frog-marched off to some war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Where the hell is The Hague, anyway? In Europe someplace? Jeez. Nobody wants that.

And getting healthcare for everybody, getting rid of pre-existing conditions, setting up a government-run plan to compete with the insurance companies...that really would be nice. For everybody. I mean, what the hell do you care? You'll still have more money than God. And Obama's put his ass on the line for this stuff.

So maybe we can work something out.

I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, to think that Republicans might listen to reason, at this late date.

But you know Obama and Hope. With him, that shit springs eternal.

With me, not so much. But now that we've got Bush and Cheney's balls in a vice, do I think maybe we can reach a, what do the lawyers call it? A mutually beneficial compromise?

Yes we can.