"...The right balance between retribution and reconciliation is always hard to find in the aftermath of national trauma. Ask the Bosnians or South Africans about the trade-offs between justice and recovery. When wars are ongoing, it is wise to err on the side of caution. There's work to do. Obama's right: America should look ahead, not back.

A Truth Commission could address the broad collapse of accountability that opened the way for an imperial presidency and the use of cruel and inhuman treatment, while avoiding a facile search for scapegoats that would allow too many to disregard their own small measure of responsibility.

That, of course, is Obama's favorite word: responsibility. I think it demands some acknowledgment that, "There but for the grace of God go I."

With Obama, words have begun to have meaning again. Declarative sentences are back. I couldn't take my eyes off that photo of Obama shaking hands with President Chávez of Venezuela; it cut through so much epic posturing. But his use of language has been more liberating even than such images.

Two sentences uttered recently by the president in Turkey are an example: "The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country — I know, because I am one of them."

It was one of those moments when you realize just how scary Obama must be to America's jihadist enemies. Knowing Islam across the dinner table, he has no fear of it. His predecessor, in Facebook terms, went on a spree of de-friending that made terrorist recruitment easier. Now the tables have been turned.

The U.S. has emerged from eight years of dyslexia. It has now revealed how dangerously words were manipulated and is learning again to speak a language the world can understand. America's narrative is inclusive once more, as it must be by the country's very nature. The power of language to reconcile is as great as its power to kill.

At his first press conference in February, Obama said: "The strongest democracies flourish from frequent and lively debate, but they endure when people of every background and belief find a way to set aside smaller differences in service of a greater purpose."

That's a sentence you don't have to read twice. The differences today are not small — they concern the rule of law and torture — but the spirit of Obama's words still provides a useful moral compass for this moment of American self-questioning and anguish."
NYT