Marty Peretz writing on the decision to open (reopen and redo, actually) an investigation of CIA operatives’ use of enhanced interrogation techniques:

It is rumored that Panetta, a long-time and responsible public servant, intends on resigning due to this and related matters. Panetta reminded the public yesterday that the now controversial methods were known to the department of justice and the Congress for years. One other matter. He also reasserted that the techniques had also worked with no one dying. And since these techniques are no longer in use . . . what is the purpose of it all?

I’d like to think Panetta has the integrity and decency to quit, but what is he waiting for if that is his game plan? (Maybe Obama doesn’t accept resignations at Martha’s Vineyard.) But the question is a good one: what is the point?

The most obvious is that the Obama team and its irritated left-wing supporters are acting like moths to a flame—they cannot pass up a chance to bash the Bush team. Even when it’s counterproductive, politically unpopular, lacking in factual support, or all three, they can’t help themselves. It is what motivates them, what gives them a sense of moral superiority. They are “un-Bush” and must perpetually remind us of their disdain for all things, people, policies, and events of the Bush years. (One senses that if Bush had found a cure for cancer, this crowd would refuse to use it “on principle.”)

The public may be getting the idea—from the ill-conceived idea to close Guantanamo to the frothing about “Truth Commissions” to the Nancy Pelosi “They lied!” performance—that the Obama team’s national-security policy isn’t so much about national security as about bashing the Bushies. They may decide there is something noxious about substituting political vendettas for protection of Americans and support for our intelligence community. And they may conclude there really is no excuse for taking down low-level public servants along the way.

Let’s hope Panetta writes a compelling resignation letter.