The CIA Inspector General determined 5 years ago that no legal action should be taken against those intelligence professionals who carried out their responsibilities under the rubric of legal opinions offered by the Bush administration lawyers and career employees of the Justice Department.

That same Justice Department also refused to prosecute the interrogators, believing a case could not be made that would result in convictions in an American court.

So why is Attorney General Eric Holder going to prosecute the interrogators?

Because in the coldly calculating political world of Washington where the president is in trouble with his own base over health care reform, it makes perfect sense to throw the troops some red meat in order to bring them back on the reservation.

These carefully orchestrated leaks beginning Friday with news that Holder was considering naming a prosecutor, to the news Monday that he was indeed going to try and prosecute the interrogators, to the publication of part of the classified record on the CIA's IG report yesterday, we have just witnessed the oldest game in Washington - leaking information to score political points. At a time the president's plans for health care reform are going off the rails, a distraction was in order.

But on a matter of such delicate national security? This, the most political administration in memory, doesn't seem to care. The entire federal bureaucracy and all the levers of national power seem to be at Obama's disposal to manipulate for political ends.

In that context, anything, and anyone can be thrown under the bus.