Let there be no doubt, President Barack Obama failed the first public test of his decision-making concerning our national security.

By first disavowing, then releasing legal memos detailing the interrogation techniques used on high value detainees in the aftermath of 9/11, and finally allowing the possibility of prosecution and certainty of persecution of those involved, President Obama confirmed America�s worst fears about his readiness to ensure that our own homeland security comes first.

It was just a little more than a year ago that those doubts were infamously brought to the fore during the Democratic primaries when then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ran those 3 a.m. White House phone ads, implicitly questioning whether a then-less-than-one-term Senator possessed the depth of experience to deal with a national security crisis.

But now, 100 days into his presidency, America hasn�t yet needed to worry about President Obama�s ability to be awakened in the middle of the night to address an unexpected emergency.  Rather, Americans need to be much more concerned that, even after weeks of careful deliberation, President Obama was not only willing to give up the details and limits of America�s interrogation playbook to anyone who wants it -- specifically our enemies -- but he also lacks the presidential fortitude to protect the actions of his predecessors, their advisors, and even the men and women on the line who carried out the orders to use every legal means at their disposal to prevent another terrorist catastrophe.

Sure, the President claimed that the full force and weight of the United States would defend �those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice� in the so-derided �torture memos� from the Department of Justice.  But ever since making that statement two weeks ago while openly disavowing and releasing every last detail about the American legal limits for interrogation -- which, by the way, could only be used on high value detainees in extraordinary circumstances -- the new administration has backtracked, leaving the door wide open to the possibility of prosecution and the certainty of persecution for everyone involved, from the former President and Vice President who made the decisions, to their attorneys in the Justice Department�s Office of Legal Counsel who provided the advice, to the CIA operatives who carried out the orders.

Indeed, President Obama limited what cover he and his administration was willing to offer from the very outset.  As virtually every media outlet picked up on, President Obama was careful in describing just what protection would be available.  Those involved in the interrogations had nothing to fear if they �rel[ied] in good faith upon legal advice.�  In other words, there were lines they shouldn�t have, and couldn�t have, crossed if the United States was going to stand up for them now.  And, as we have now learned through the release of the memos, those details took hundreds of pages to describe.

So even the men and women on the line, who President Obama claimed America would defend at every turn, have to wonder about so many things.  Taking the lightening rod example of waterboarding alone, those involved have to asking themselves: was too much water used, from the too high or too low a position, for too long?  The questions go on and on, for each and every technique employed.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former CIA Director Michael Hayden explained just how much damage President Obama has caused.  �Those charged with the responsibility of gathering potentially lifesaving information from unwilling captives are now told essentially that any legal opinion they get as to the lawfulness of their activity is only as durable as political fashion permits,� they wrote in the Wall Street Journal.  �Even with a seemingly binding opinion in hand, which future CIA personnel would take the risk?  There would be no wink, no nod, no handshake that would convince them that the legal guidance is durable.�

Indeed, Mukasey and Hayden note that former Office of Legal Counsel head Jack Goldsmith identified this as a problem that seriously threatens the intelligence community today and has dramatically undermined it in the past.  �Politicians pressure the intelligence to push the legal limit, and then cast accusations when aggressiveness goes out of style, thereby encouraging risk aversion, and then, as occurred in the wake of 9/11, criticizing the intelligence community for feckless timidity,� Mukasey and Hayden explain.

But the CIA operatives carrying out their duties are the lucky ones -- those whom the President has deigned to provide some official protection so long as they followed each and every instruction provided in hundreds of pages of analysis to the letter.  The President has made it clear he is unwilling to make an executive decision that his predecessors and their advisors can rest easy.  Instead, he has thrown the issue back to the Justice Department, explicitly leaving open the possibility that if that �changed� law enforcement agency now believes the Bush administration violated the law, then the officials providing the advice and making the orders could face whatever consequences come as a result, including criminal prosecution.

This position is nothing less than shockingly short-sighted.  True, there has been a significant political change that occurred in the last election, but Presidents have long understood that prosecuting their predecessors and their advisors only leads to the inevitable result of weakening the Office of the President and the executive branch as a whole.  After all, whether it is in four or eight years, someone else will have the same opportunity.

Who knows which way the political winds will be blowing then, but it is pretty easy to imagine a scenario in which the next administration will have similarly deep reservations about the policies of the current one.  Indeed, there is already strong resentment about the financial bailouts and economic stimulus pushed by this administration, some of which has been implemented entirely through the discretion of President Obama and his political appointees, just like the Bush interrogation tactics were.

In other words, President Obama needs to think through the implications of prosecuting and persecuting his predecessors and their advisors because his administration�s turn will come, it�s just a matter of when.

Unfortunately, as Mukasey and Hayden explain, much damage has already been done.  Just by releasing the memos, President Obama has already weakened the national security prerogatives of every future president by, in the words of the former Attorney General and former CIA Director, tying �not only his own hands but also the hands of any future administration faced with the prospect of an attack.�  Indeed, this is why current Obama CIA Director Leon Panetta, along with his four immediate predecessors, cautioned the President against releasing the memos at all.

It is often said that politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose.  There is little doubt that Candidate Obama�s poetry was some of the best Americans have heard in a long time.  But President Obama�s prose is turning out to be a tortured mess, indeed.