“When you get one administration prosecuting its predecessor, you start creating the conditions of a banana republic,” said Philip Heymann, a law professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who served as deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton. “Every Republican in the country would think this was a dangerous attack on the two-party system.”

Fox News Legal analyst Peter Johnson, Jr. writes, “Every moment that the president allows an atmosphere in which we even consider that political disagreement should be the basis of criminal indictment weakens us at home and around the world.”

The Wall Street Journal says “Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret.”

Despite such warnings, those intent on perpetually attacking the Bush administration and gaining partisan political advantage from the interrogations issue will press forward with all deliberate speed. Their goal is to keep the public’s attention focused on the 24/7 media coverage such a spectacle will attract. They hope it will further damage the Republican Party and reduce any opposition it may pose to their agenda to a whimper.

To be sure, there are legitimate issues here worthy of debate. Honorable people on both sides have deeply held beliefs; and there has to be some middle ground between bamboo shoots under the fingernails and three hots and a cot--just about all the Army Field Manual permits. The courtroom and Inquisition hearings in Congress, however, are not the proper venue. Imagine for a moment Republicans in Congress following the 1952 election of President Eisenhower calling for prosecution of Truman administration officials who recommended dropping atomic bombs on Japan which killed a couple hundred thousand Japanese civilians.

If anyone doubts the damage this will do to the CIA consider the effects of the 1975 Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, better known as the Church Committee. While it investigated real CIA abuses of its authority, the overreaction to them denuded and eviscerated the agency’s clandestine intelligence capabilities. Many believe the CIA has never recovered. The 9/11 Commission Report cited the effects of the Church Committee as one reason we didn’t see the 9/11 attacks coming.

Then there is the damage this will do to President Obama and his presidency. Republican Congressmen like Peter King of New York have warned that if Democrats move to prosecute former Bush administration officials it will spark an all out political war. Republicans in Congress will do everything possible to obstruct and oppose the Democratic majority across the board.

There will be a bloodletting and it won’t just be Republican blood. Nancy Pelosi, ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee at the time, and other Democratic Congressional leaders were fully briefed on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques and did not object to them. Pelosi denies this. Porter Goss, former CIA director and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee from 1997 to 2004 suggests that Pelosi either has amnesia or a politically expedient lapse of memory. It’s hard to see how Democrats come through this unscathed.

More important, however, is the damage this will do to the country. While Americans are fighting a civil war, our enemies will do everything possible to take advantage of our inattention to them. And if another 9/11 style terrorist attack takes place, Americans will blame Obama and the Democratic Party.

This issue has the potential to become the straw that breaks the donkey’s back. Obama's job-approval rating remains high--over 60 percent--but support for his policies among moderates and independents had already dropped sharply before release of the top-secret documents. They are concerned about out-of-control government spending and Obama’s performance during his first overseas trips.

Release of the memos only made things worse. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that fifty-eight percent of Americans believe the Obama administration’s recent release of CIA memos about the harsh interrogation methods used on terrorism suspects endangers the national security of the United States.

Obama had to know he was playing with fire. His statements prior to releasing the top-secret memos and his decision not to take any action against CIA employees involved in coercive interrogations demonstrate this. But when he released the memos then appeared to invite prosecution of Bush administration officials he, I believe unintentionally, opened Pandora’s Box.

The White House is working feverishly now to correct its missteps and regain control of the situation. It’s sending a strong message to Democrats on the Hill and the media that it doesn’t want prosecutions or a so called “truth commission.” It knows that such efforts will only sap the energy from its attempts to reform health care, energy, and education.

All you need is ten minutes on the internet, however, to read a sample of the demands to try George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and other former officials as war criminals. The court-ordered release of photographs of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan, which Obama has decided not to contest, will just throw gasoline on the flames. The evils--criminalizing policy differences and putting politics ahead of security--have escaped from Pandora’s Box. Fasten your seatbelts America, it’s going to be a difficult and bumpy ride to an unknown destination.