Bye Bye Bybee, Hello Holder

Patrick Leahy on current Federal judge and former torture memo author Jay Bybee:

On Monday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), rejected calls for the impeachment of federal judge and torture memo author Jay Bybee, saying that he was "one of the most honorable people you'll ever meet."

If that's the case, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), told reporters Tuesday, then Bybee should resign.

"The fact is, the Bush administration and Mr. Bybee did not tell the truth. If the Bush administration and Mr. Bybee had told the truth, he never would have been confirmed," said Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"The decent and honorable thing for him to do would be to resign. And if he is a decent and honorable person, he will resign," he said deliberately.

Oh, and while this weekend the Obama administration position was "we won't prosecute torture" somebody must have pointed out to him that 1) it makes him accessory to war crimes and 2) it really was never Obama's decision, but AG Eric Holder's choice to prosecute.

Hence Obama's new position on leaving it up to Holder for prosecuting torture today.

The question of whether to bring charges against those who devised justification for the methods "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," Obama said. The president discussed the continuing issue of terrorism-era interrogation tactics with reporters as he finished an Oval Office meeting with visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan.

The always impressive Dday has more on this as does the NY Times political crew, and Greg Sargent notes that calling it torture is suddenly not in vogue anymore with the White House.

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan seems to think the Nameless One may be hitting the panic button.

New overdue tag: Eric Holder.