I will grant the Obama nominee, however also append that at this current time it is unlikely, though perhaps not impossible, that a Democratic President could make such a nominee today, and garner the support of the party. Because 2018 is not 2009, or even 2013. And while it is certainly a mark against President Obama, no argument there, it was also a product of the political time. For good or ill, the Democratic party did not spend political capital overturning those gross abuses of power that came post 9/11. The will of the people was not so firmly against such measures yet. The reports exposing the inefficiencies as well as the moral failures of the intelligence apparatuses, vis a vis torture, had not yet become full public.
So for a bunch of reasons good and bad, though I’d argue mostly bad, at the time supporting the torture practices was not automatic disqualification in the mind of the party. Today it is. It is to our nations eternal shame it took this long to get to the point where even half the political spectrum would take this stand but there you have it.
And if a Democratic executive proposed such measures, or supported a nominee who did? I’d do the same thing I did in 2012, vote against them*.
*though, like @Gordon_Cameron I live in a strongly blue state where my vote for national maters has never, well, mattered. So this is easy for me to do. Since it is symbolic only. Had I been pressed and forced to vote for Obama or Romney, it would have been Obama by a wide margin.
EDIT: and I will add that, again to the American people’s discredit, that part of the reason such things are now important issues is because it is no longer Obama at the helm. The never ending War on Terror enters year 17. With President Obama people, for perhaps understandable but somewhat misguided reasons, they expected intelligence and judgment to be exercised in avoiding the moral pitfalls. So there was a lack of urgency from some corners when it came to rewinding and renouncing such programs. Basically ‘we trust he won’t do these bad things, so focus on the present rather than litigate the past’. But then the thought, and reality, of someone far less temperamentally sound and judgmentally challenged leading scared the shit out of people.
Which, yeah, duh. If you’re not ok with someone like Trump running those things, take a stronger stand before he becomes president you nitwits! So someone like Brennan who, while on qualifications, is fit for the job, his past regarding such extrajudicial actions is questionable at best? That’s a time to take a stand. But with the full blown congressional intransigence of the time it was not a high priority for his administration to make those programs a political issue.
And that failure to repudiate the worst aspects of the Bush administration is one of my harshest criticisms of the Obama administration.