Barack Obama on Tuesday:

President Obama suggested today that it remained a possibility that the Justice Department might bring charges against officials of the Bush administration who devised harsh interrogation policies that some see as torture. …

But in clear change from language he and members of his administration have used in the past, the president said that “with respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say 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.”

Barack Obama on Thursday:

At a White House meeting Thursday, President Obama told Congressional leaders that he thinks it would be a mistake to set up a commission to investigate excesses of the Bush administration’s war on terror.

“The president said that given all that’s on the agenda and the pressing issues facing the country, that a backward-looking investigation would not be productive,” a White House official who attended the session said. “The president was very clear…that he believes it’s important that there’s not a witch hunt.”

Until Tuesday, Obama had consistently downplayed any idea of investigations into allegations of torture involving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah. He reversed himself from a similar statement from his press secretary just the day before — and then when it became apparent that any investigation would not only include Congressional Democrats who signed off on the interrogations but the revelation of what got gained through the interrogations, Obama had to reverse himself again within less than 72 hours.

Maybe Obama should have considered the ramifications of his statement before he made it?

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