What’s more important: turning the White House into a glass house, or keeping the shades of secrecy drawn in a room or two? That’s the debate taking Capitol Hill by storm these days and likely the subject of even more heated debate in hallways from Langley to Quantico.

Let me give you some background. This all began with President Obama choosing to release one-time top secret memos that documented the use of water boarding and other harsh interrogation techniques administered to detainees, such as 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

This discussion isn’t about whether torture is good, bad, productive or unreliable. Many, at least publicly, agree that torture needs to be banned, while still allowing some less physical measures of pressure. This argument is about whether or not we need to air this dirty laundry…an incendiary pile that when burned, will emit a cloud of anti-U.S. sentiment likely to waft across the globe. Seeing and smelling it will be those who are already spiteful of America and now upset by the revelations, will be emboldened. More prone to get on board with whatever fanatical wave of anti-American militants are out there. At least, that’s the fear -- that this handful of printer paper will be just as damaging as the fistful of photos taken at Abu-Ghraib.

So was the president right to release them? I guess many can say this is another Obama-esque olive branch being offered to the world…another gesture that America has turned over a newer, gentler, more honest leaf. The opponents, who include everyone from current CIA director and Obama appointee Leon Panetta, former CIA director Michael Hayden, Former Vice President Cheney and plenty of others say that the release will cause interrogators to step back from the job at hand and compromise future efforts to gain ‘actionable intelligence’.

There is a legitimate concern also that this entire mess will not easily be swept under the rug. Mr. Cheney insists the government should also now release memos that indicate the tough interrogations got actual results, results that may have saved lives. He says they exist.

So, does one revelation deserve another? Should the dominoes begin to fall, or should we let economic headlines return to the forefront and dominate the 24 hour news cycle?

And then consider this: President Obama, after seemingly flip-flopping (critics say) wants to see interrogators following orders absolved from any prosecution but is open to the idea of charging those who drew up the policy that allowed water boarding and other methods. That could mean inquiries, hearings, panels and court cases and countless days of international attention.

Either way, the further down this road we travel the more damage we may do. Abu-Ghraib was certainly damaging, this may just open up wounds that had finally begun to heal.