Whatever happened to all that happy post-partisanship Obama promised?

The editors of the Wall Street Journal say there’s no chance of it now:

Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret.

Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama’s victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But at least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.

If this analogy seems excessive, consider how Mr. Obama has framed the issue. He has absolved CIA operatives of any legal jeopardy, no doubt because his intelligence advisers told him how damaging that would be to CIA morale when Mr. Obama needs the agency to protect the country. But he has pointedly invited investigations against Republican legal advisers who offered their best advice at the request of CIA officials.

In the Washington Post, David Ignatius writes:

Put yourself in the shoes of the people who were asked to interrogate al-Qaeda prisoners in 2002. One former officer told me he declined the job, not because he thought the program was wrong but because he knew it would blow up. “We all knew the political wind would change eventually,” he recalled. Other officers who didn’t make that cynical but correct calculation are now “broken and bewildered,” says the former operative.

[...]

One veteran counterterrorism operative says that agents in the field are already being more careful about using the legal findings that authorize covert action. An example is the so-called “risk of capture” interview that takes place in the first hour after a terrorism suspect is grabbed. This used to be the key window of opportunity, in which the subject was questioned aggressively and his cellphone contacts and “pocket litter” were exploited quickly.

Now, field officers are more careful. They want guidance from headquarters. They need legal advice. I’m told that in the case of an al-Qaeda suspect seized in Iraq several weeks ago, the CIA didn’t even try to interrogate him. The agency handed him over to the U.S. military.

So, this is where we are as a country these days? We’re really considering prosecuting people for authoring legal opinions?

Merely by raising the issue in this fashion, Obama has already undermined the future security of the country. In the environment created by President Obama and Congressional Democrats, who in their right mind would ever begin a career in intelligence or anti-terrorism? Who would stay in the intelligence services, knowing that their work could land them in court any time the presidency changes hands?

The only question is whether Obama administration officials will be prosecuted in the future for what they’re doing today. Because once politicians take the frightening step of criminalizing policy differences, they’d better plan on staying in power forever, or they may one day find themselves in the defendant’s chair. And if being too vigilant about protecting the country is a potential criminal offense, so is not doing enough.