One nit: Legally, the president can not order the AG to halt an investigation. But there is nothing stopping the president from offering his opinion that such an investigation should not be happening (something Obama has thus far refused to do).

Response: "Uhhhh, uhmmm, uhhhhh..."

As always, the perspicacious and incisive Ms. Charen cuts to the quick. I think she knows the real answer to the questions she would pose to Mr. Holder, whatever equivocations and circumlocutions he might publicly throw out: For Leftists, as their hero and exemplar Lenin once so pithily phrased it, questions of ethics in politics boil down to "Who-whom?"

I started laughing at the "even more Left Wing Democrat than you are" line. There is no such person! Although, I am truly enjoying watching Obama completely undermine Liberalism through his actions. He has put-to-lie 10 years of hate-Bush rhetoric.

That being said, I would phrase the question thusly, "Mr. President, by all accounts the SEALs shot an unarmed criminal suspect. What is your position on this matter, and will the SEALs be prosecuted by Justice along with the CIA interrogators whose efforts made the killing possible? Are the CIA agents and SEALs conspirators to violate the Civil Rights of Osama Bin Laden?"

You gotta ask it like a fake Liberal. They don't believe any of that stuff either. They just said it because they wanted to beat Bush. Now that they are in power, they do not care about "civil liberties" except for themselves and their friends.

Hokkoda: You're a fantasist. You might try reading something more than the NRO because then you might see that many of us on the Left do not find the Bush era torture regime's continuation under Obama encouraging in any way. Many of us still happen to believe in the rule of law, which I know in some quarters of the Right seems quaint. Should you care to educate yourself on this matter, you might read Glenn Greenwald at Salon. Naturally, you are welcome to disagree with everything he says. But at least inform yourself.

Mona,

While I support the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques' - because I personally do not believe them to cross the line into torture - the comparison you and many others have presented is apples to oranges in the degree of imminent threat. Unfortunately, because the White House has completely garbled its accounts of the raid, it may be a few more days or weeks before we are told finally whether the SEALs attempted to apprehend bin Laden before killing him.

During the raid, in the attempt to apprehend bin Laden, the SEALs plausibly faced the threat of imminent death or injury. Their choices were to either eliminate bin Laden almost immediately, perhaps after some initial attempt to apprehend, or to extend the effort to apprehend. The latter option would expose them to a continuing level of risk, as it would have given bin Laden more time to gain access to a weapon, or perhaps even time for Pakistani security forces to arrive on the scene, which would have endangered the entire force.

The interrogations, on the other hand, were conducted in cold blood, with no known immediate threat to either the interrogators or to national interest. I emphasize "known immediate" threat. Obviously al Qaeda constitutes a threat, but absent any knowledge of an impending attack, one cannot deem the interrogations to have been conducted under imminent threat.

Again, I am a supporter of enhanced interrogation techniques, and I agree with you that the investigation and possible prosecution of the CIA interrogators is a blatantly political maneuver to pacify the radical base. Hopefully, as Jim Geraghty might posit, this particular Obama pledge comes with an expiration date, as have many other campaign promises.

Today, Juan Williams, on Fox, talked about "inhanced" interrogations and gouging out fingernails and eyeballs. This, after the White House mouth piece could not explain how shooting someone in the head was worse than waterboarding. This is how liberals think; they don't.

Debra Burlingame, the sister of Chick Burlingame, pilot of the plane that hit the Pentagon on 9-11, specifically asked Obama at the Ground Zero victory lap if he would talk to Holder and ask him to drop the charges against the CIA agents who waterboarded KSM. Obama, ever the gentleman said "No, I won't" and turned his back on Ms. Burlingame. Obama will take victory laps over getting a terrorist because of policies of President Bush, but he won't excuse the very actions that are allowing him to take that victory lap at Ground Zero.

This is possibly the most dishonest administration we have had in a century. And those Navy SEALs have a right to worry. Obama will claim he has no control over Holder, and those SEALs will find no support coming from the Oval Office as the heat builds in the international community.

Excuse me, my bad: Osama's courier answered-call.

Ms. Charen, why don't you ask the president this question yourself? To his face. Or, at least to Carney.

Or is this just more conservative navel-gazing and postulations of things that have a snowball's chance of even occurring in reality?

Really, Mona, what's the point?