Obama about to be punked?

Reports The Daily Beast's Scott Hornton:

Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.

And, reports Newsweek's Michael Isikoff:

... [T]he White House last month had accepted a recommendation from Attorney General Eric Holder to declassify and publicly release three 2005 memos that graphically describe harsh interrogation techniques approved for the CIA to use against Al Qaeda suspects. But after the story, U.S. intelligence officials, led by senior national-security aide John Brennan, mounted an intense campaign to get the decision reversed, according to a senior administration official familiar with the debate. "Holy hell has broken loose over this," said the official, who asked not to be identified because of political sensitivities.

Nevermind that the Republicans once said that The (Republican) president had a "right" to name his political appointments. Nevermind that the Republicans put the Starr Report on the Internet so that we could all read about Presidential Blowjobs, but is balking about making known memos underlying war crimes. Barack Obama is a little too enamoured with the thought of getting along just to get along (hence, naming John Brennan to his staff in the first place, and we're lucky that the lefty blogosphere went bat shit crazy in January, or he'd be running the CIA). It beginning to look as if the only one with any balls in the entire administration is Eric Holder (including the SecofState).

Grow a pair, Mr. President. Release the memos. And then empanel a grand jury.