The title of a recently released ABC News article is "Obama's Remarks On Prosecution Please Democrats (But Inevitably) Anger Republicans; As some hail Obama's comments, Others Say (That) His Contradiction Is Confusing". Here's one area that the president has come up short. Obama came into office vowing to end partisan squabbling. This clearly hasn't happened yet. The key questions involving criminal interrogation should be: are we getting the information that we need and is it legal?

The first sentence of this article is "President Obama's suggestion that his administration's Department of Justice could prosecute Bush-era officials for formulating harsh interrogation techniques against detainees prompted both praise and criticism in Washington". As we can probably imagine, the arguments in favor of and against the president's latest policies/statements/remarks were split mainly along party lines.

After meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah, the president started off: "For those who carried out some of these operations WITHIN THE FOUR CORNERS OF LEGAL OPINION OR GUIDANCE, I DO NOT THINK IT'S APPROPRIATE FOR THEM TO BE PROSECUTED". This is a drastic change in rhetoric from the time when the president requested a "truth commission" to be set up to investigate various alleged abuses by key members of the Bush administration.

"With respect to those who FORMULATED those legal decisions, I WOULD SAY THAT THAT IS GOING TO BE MORE OF A DECISION FOR THE ATTORNEY GENERAL within the parameters of various laws and I DON'T WANT TO PREJUDGE THAT. I think that there are a host of very complicated issues involved there". Is the president being straightforward or is he simply deflecting responsibility to Eric Holder?

Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, released the following statement: "We do not need these techniques (e.g. water-boarding, sleep deprivation, etc.) to keep America safe. The information gained from these techniques was valuable IN SOME INSTANCES, BUT THERE IS NO WAY OF KNOWING WHETHER THE SAME INFORMATION COULD HAVE BEEN OBTAINED THROUGH OTHER MEANS" which are not violent and therefore would not have caused this much of a heated dispute.

Obama continued: "There needs to be a further accounting of what happened during this period, I think, for Congress to examine ways it could be done in a bipartisan fashion, outside of the typical hearing process that can sometimes break down and BREAK IT ENTIRELY ALONG PARTY LINES, TO THE EXTENT THAT THERE ARE INDEPENDENT PARTICIPANTS WHO ARE ABOVE REPROACH AND HAVE CREDIBILITY, that would probably be a more sensible approach to take".No one is COMPLETELY "above reproach", Mr. President.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said "He believes that PEOPLE IN GOOD FAITH were operating WITH THE GUIDANCE (that) they were provided (with). Yeah, but THOSE WHO DEVISED THE POLICY, HE THINKS (that) THEY SHOULDN'T BE PROSECUTED EITHER and that's not the place we go". Mr. Secretary, we beg to differ. You can argue that the people who implemented this unjust policy were only doing as they were instructed to do, but surely, THE PEOPLE WHO GAVE THOSE ORDERS SHOULD be held accountable.

Gibbs tried to clarify things on Monday: "The president dpes believe and the attorney general said quite clearly that THOSE THAT BELIEVED IN GOOD FAITH THAT THESE TECHNIQUES HAD BEEN DECLARED LEGAL BY THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE SHOULD NOT BE PROSECUTED. The president also believes that rather than looking backward and fighting this backward, it's more important to move the country forward". Mr. Secretary, how can we move forward if we can't close this painful chapter in our past?

Surprisingly, Democrats seem to be "content" (i.e. satisfied). According to California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, "I was very pleased to hear that. I think that is the right thing". That's one supportive vote of the president's most controversial policies to date. Just becaue Conyers is using the words "exactly right" in this statement doesn't mean that he agrees with the president on this issue...and he shouldn't.

However, Michigna Democratic Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, clearly has some reservations: "Critical questions remain about how these memos came into existence and how they were approved which our committee is uniquely situated to consider". We need to look no further than "Critical questions remain" to figure out that Conyers is skeptical.

Conyers continued: "The president's approaches today to a fuller accounting of these matters IS EXACTLY RIGHT - further review of the Bush administration anti-terror policy will be most valuable IF DONE IN A TRULY APOLITICAL AND BIPARTISAN MANNER". This is a statement suggesting a political strategy.

Furthermore, "Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., even raised the possibility of impeaching one of the authors of these memos, Jay Bybee, CURRENTLY A FEDERAL JUDGE". Bybee should be impeached because if horrific interrogation techniques are not dealt with and banned now people will assume that they are perfectly legal, when in fact they are a blatant violation of human rights.

On top of this, "The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Bybee never would have been confirmed had the Senate been aware of the content of the memos ADDING THAT BYBEE SHOULD RESIGN". The debate is heating up.

If there were some angry Democrats, Republicans are even more angry. Just listen to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: "THE PRESIDENT'S CONTRADICTION IS A BIT SURPRISING and we're sort of interested to know what is the policy or the postion of the administration BECAUSE RIGHT NOW IT SEEMS TO ME SOMEWHAT CONFUSING". The Republicans have been out of sorts lately but this is one of the rare times since Democrats won control of Congress back in the 2006 mid-term Congressional elections that they are right.

McConnell continued: "I wish (that) there was as much focus from this administration ON P=OLICIES THAT WILL KEEP US SAFE HERE IN THE UNITED STATES. To the extent that the president wants to alter the policies that have kept us safe for the last eight years since 9/11 is a matter of some concern". Republicans just won't shy away from hammering Democrats on issues related to national security.

One of these ex-officials, Dick Cheney, spoke exclusively to Fox News: "One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is that they put out the legal memos.., but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified". So, Cheney is accusing the Obama administration of illegally accessing information which isn't surprising as Cheney is a Republican while Obama is a Democrat.

Finally, Gibbs said that "We've had at least a two-year disagreement with THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. That policy disagreement is whether or not you can uphold the values in which this country was founded at the same time that you protect the citizens that live in that country. The president of the United States and this administration believe that you can. THE VICE PRESIDENT, has come to, in our opinion, a different conclusion". Gibbs is talking as if Cheney was still the Vice-President.

So the focus of this article has clearly shifted from whether or not torture is legal to whether or not the Obama administration had the legal right to obtain access to documents that had been classified under ex-president Bush. These have to be some of the less convincing remarks that Obama has made thus far in his young presidency, especially since Secretary Gibbs gave the final comments instead of Obama himself.