Vice President Dick Cheney's admission that he authorized waterboarding has focused attention on possible Bush administration war crimes, and former Nixon White House counsel John Dean believes there will be "serious consequences" if the Obama administration tries to avoid singling out those involved for prosecution.

Olbermann asked what Dean saw as the best and most realistic outcome, and Dean replied that it "would be if Mr. Obama, indeed, does exactly what he said during the campaign -- that he will, indeed, when his attorney general is seated, have him instructed to immediately look and see if these offenses have been committed, if they are prosecutable ... and then report to him and the nation to make it very clear that this is not the policy of the Obama administration or the United States."

When Olbermann then asked what he thought was the "most likely outcome," Dean laughed and replied, "Given ... the heat [Obama's] going to take on Rick Warren, he's going to take an awful lot more heat if he doesn't do something to honor his campaign commitments."

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