FUROR OVER POSSIBLE PROBE OF BUSH APPOINTEES GROWS - AT 7:25 A.M. ET:  A hard-hitting piece from Bloomberg on the hazards ahead if America goes the show-trial route:

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is seeking to substitute Bush administration political appointees for intelligence-agency professionals as targets of public outrage over interrogation techniques used on suspected terrorists.

Obama’s decision to rule out prosecuting those who conducted the interrogations reflects his need to avoid antagonizing the Central Intelligence Agency as the U.S. fights two wars and faces terrorist threats. Still, he risks a bruising political fight with Republicans furious over potential prosecutions of senior Bush administration officials.

“When you get one administration prosecuting its predecessor, you start creating the conditions of a banana republic,” said Philip Heymann, a law professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who served as deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton. “Every Republican in the country would think this was a dangerous attack on the two-party system.”

COMMENT:  And those Republicans would be right.  I like the "banana republic" analogy.  Of course, we can't say it too loudly.  It's not politically correct.  We must show great respect for banana republics, and for Chiquita Banana herself, a marvelous woman and a fighter for banana dignity.

April 23, 2009