I just love Friday afternoons. They're always a highlight of the week for political hobbyists, because that's when administrations "take out the trash", releasing reports and decisions too late for the Friday network evening news, but too minor to stay in the news cycle for three days to hit the Monday broadcasts.

 

Today's gem has the Obama Justice Department clearing the Bush administration lawyers who wrote the now-infamous "torture memos", justifying the use of waterboarding.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/19/bush.administration.memos/

 

The report by the Justice Department concludes the high-ranking lawyers who developed controversial legal guidance on waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques may have exercised poor judgment, but not professional misconduct.

 

Of course in these modern times the blogosphere never rests, and it could be an interesting weekend for both liberal and conservative demagogues and their adherents.

 

What do you all think?

While I despise torture and think torturing people is the most un-American and inhuman act possible, I always thought it was rather unlikely that lawyers would be prosecuted for their advice and if I’m not mistaken this was the virtual consensus of the legal community. So this is really a non-story. There is some possibility the officials who actually signed off on orders could be prosecuted but I would not put any money on anyone ever being held accountable for torture.

I wonder how they arrived at the conclusion since every time waterboarding has ever come up in a legal situation prior to the Bush administration, it has been considered torture.

While it may have been legally permissible for them to write this memo, in my book it will never be morally permissible

Well it's been a week, and I haven't heard much from the Department of Outrage.