Major Changes Depend on Little Details

President Barack Obama knows that if he wants to improve relations between the United States and the Muslim world, he will have to focus on the details. On Day 2 of his presidency, Obama made a statement by visiting the State Department.

All Eyes on Holder

Since the days of Alberto Gonzales, the Department of Justice, and particularly the Office of the Attorney General, has tainted, to say the very least, the United States judicial process. In the Bush years, torture and CIA black sites have become somewhat synonymous with the war on terror.

That’s why today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Eric Holder’s nomination for US Attorney General is so significant. Immediately, Holder’s responses established a position, both a legal and a philosophical one.

These were Chairman Leahy’s first two questions, and Holder’s answers to them:

Is waterboarding torture?

“Waterboarding is torture.”

Can the commander-in-chief override a law, in the name of national security, to allow this form of torture?

“No one is above the law.”

Hopefully this is the beginning of the cleansing process. Hopefully we will reconstruct our image as a nation of laws.

Mr. Holder, our eyes are on you.