While President Obama continues without much reward his attempts to play nice with his Republican opposition, his Justice Department is refusing to let bygones be bygones.

His attorney general, Eric Holder, has appointed a special prosecutor to dig deeper into the scandalous prisoner interrogation methods of the departed Bush administration, even as a 2004 CIA report documenting some of the worst of them has been released.

The result is a case of political schizophrenia in which the president insists that his administration focus on present and future challenges while his lead law-enforcement agency looks backward at the unpunished sins of the advocates of the harshest interrogations of the past.

Obama's personal outreach to his political opposition has produced only a firestorm of protest against his health-care reform effort, enflamed by conservative commentators and activist groups. His strong liberal base in his own party increasingly deplores his conciliatory attempts, urging him to use Democratic control of Congress to ram through the reforms he wants.

These same liberals have been demanding ever since Obama's inauguration that, instead of trying to work with the Republicans, he plunge into a full-fledged investigation of the Bush years. They argue that the Bush excesses are at the core of the mess that now impedes pursuit of his own agenda.

Obama meanwhile is being treated daily to a lesson in the futility of trying to play ball with a demoralized opposition party desperate to capitalize on his seeming political softness. He is in a sense trapped by his repeated campaign pledge to break the Washington gridlock by extending a conciliatory hand to his critics.

Part of that attitude has been his insistence on letting sleeping dogs lie concerning the abuses, domestic and foreign, of the Bush administration.

Occasionally, he tries to remind the American public of the deep hole he inherited from his predecessor as a reason for his own lack of progress on his own agenda.

But doing so, obviously, runs contrary to his insistence on looking forward. One can only imagine the interesting conversations that went on between Obama and Holder, and CIA Director Leon Panetta as well, prior to Holder's announcement that a special prosecutor will delve further into evidence of the Bush surveillance and interrogation techniques.

The release of the 2004 CIA inspector general's report was heavily redacted but nevertheless revealed a range of despicable interrogation practices, from waterboarding to mock executions and threats to kill or torture wives and children of detainees. Its release was forced by a Freedom of Information lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Included in the report were some items that then Vice President Dick Cheney sought to be released as evidence of his claim that the harsh interrogations had produced life-saving information in the fight against terrorism. But the report offered no assessment of their effectiveness.

While the liberal community hailed the release, Cheney deplored it in his continuing argument that national security is being impaired by actions of the current administration. He said CIA operatives involved "deserve our gratitude" rather than face possible legal action.

"President Obama's decision to allow the Justice Department to investigate and possibly prosecute CIA personnel, and his decision to remove authority from the CIA to the White House (for setting interrogation rules) serves as a reminder, if any were needed," Cheney said, "of why so many Americans have doubts about this administration's ability to be responsible for our national security."

Such comments indicate that the brighter light shone on the interrogation practices of the Bush years, while pleasing many Democrats, will inevitably harden the Republican opposition that has already turned a cold shoulder to Obama's extended hand, considered a naive effort anyway among liberals.

In a way, the administration's tardy willingness to address the damaging consequences of the Bush detainee policies can also be a reminder to Obama of who's on his side and who isn't. And why he should be spending more time assuaging his fellow Democrats in Congress than bucking a stonewall of conservative GOP nay-saying.