During an interview on Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi admitted she would like to “see the truth come forth” concerning issues such as the politicization of the Justice department by the Bush administration. This comes exactly one week after The New York Times published a story entitled, “Obama Reluctant to Look Into Bush Programs.”

President-Elect Obama, two days away from assuming the role of our 44th President, has reiterated numerous times his hesitance to investigate the actions of his predaceasor’s agencies.

In the aforementioned NY Times piece, former Bush White House lawyer had this to say:

“A new president doesn’t want to look vengeful,” said a former Bush White House lawyer, Bradford A. Berenson, who was a Harvard law classmate of Mr. Obama and has represented administration figures as a private lawyer, “and the last thing a new administration wants to do is spend its time and energy rehashing the perceived sins of the old one.

President-Elect Obama has also been put on record saying he has “a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

“We’re still evaluating how we’re going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth,” said Obama. “And obviously we’re going to look at past practices. And I don’t believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering up.”

With that said, Obama has made clear that if laws are found to have been blatantly broken, there will be further investigations.

“I think my general view when it comes to my attorney general is that he’s the people’s lawyer. Eric Holder’s been nominated,” said Obama. “His job is to uphold the Constitution and look after the interests of the American people, not be swayed by my day-to-day politics. So ultimately, he’s going to be making some calls. But my general belief is that when it comes to national security, what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past.”

But is this concrete enough for Pelosi and the Democratic Leadership? Apparently not. While Obama says the past is the past, Pelosi argues the past is the prologue.

“I think that we have to learn from the past, and we cannot let the politicizing of the - for example, the Justice Department, to go unreviewed. Past is prologue. We learn from it.”

While I agree with Pelosi in the sense that we can learn from the past, I have to admit that I understand why Obama has not started the witch hunt.

A deep investigation into the criminal actions of the Bush administration would be time consuming and a leech on Obama’s political capital. Not only would it seem overtly partisan, but it would risk slowing pieces of Obama’s agenda that our country needs as soon as possible.

If you ask me what I think our country needs more, a conviction of the Bush administration, or a strong and focused policy packed agenda, I say the latter.