The more I watch Cheney, the more I see a guilty conscience seeking absolution; imploring expiation.

It's almost as if he seeks a way to provoke a prosecution; or even to dog Obama into rash acts, perhaps prosecution...at least then, he'd find some way to resist the importuning of his conscience. Then, he'd have a more concrete object to resist; some work to give meaning to his denial.

It's what happens when you walk down the dark side: you damage yourself. Sometimes, permanently; even fatally. But Cheney is no hero, though he has his Cult of Personality; just like Obama has his. But Cheney is no hero.

And Obama...you have to feel for him. He genuinely has no way out of this. Obama, we must remember, has a conscience. His conscience does not give him a way out; what he has is the passage of time...and, I suspect: hope. Ironic? Maybe.

Make sure you understand this: he has no way out. We might even name his situation Huis Clos.

We won't like it; but we MUST hear it.

We, on this side of the house, have to understand the same thing people like Lindsey Graham; David Addington; Dick Cheney; and even some Democrats know, approvingly:

He has no way out.

We must hear him on this. Because we might be able to invent a way.

If I had to guess, I'd bet the soundtrack on this is something like Hendrix's cover of All Along The Watchtower.