WaPo:

[T]hose who relied on the memos and shaped their behavior in the good-faith belief that they were following the law should not be subject to prosecution.

That can be read as only saying those who followed the memos in good faith should be exempt from prosecution. Alternatively, it can be read as implicitly asserting that those who relied on the memos necessarily acted in good faith. I agree with Glenn that WaPo is more interested in promoting the latter view. Still, FWIW, the gutless ambiguity may be intentional.

Of course the real issue with the piece is the dog that didn't bark. They don't even raise -- even to dismiss it -- the possibility of prosecuting the memo authors and the administration officials who sought that faulty advice.

@bamage, you can definitely post comments at WaPo. I posted the following:

But what about those who may have relied on the memos in bad faith? Should some interrogators who may have stayed within the four corners of the memos be investigated to determine if they may have known they were acting on specious legal opinions?

And what about the authors of the memos themselves?

The bar is rightly very high for prosecuting people who acted in accordance with legal advice. But not infinitely high. Even for military personnel, "I was following orders" is not an absolute defense if those orders are illegal. Proving bad faith is hard (but not impossible, especially in this day of email) and as always there is a presumption of innocence. So pressing charges may ultimately not make sense as a matter of prosecutorial discretion. But shouldn't this be investigated?

Specter has said he will vote no on Johnsen, but he hasn't said he will filibuster. He is pro-choice, so he doesn't even have the abortion fig leaf as a reason for opposition. The political calculus right now is that he needs to show some bona fides to the left to head off a primary challenge. So I find it very strange that he might vote no on cloture (i.e. for Johnsen proceeding to a vote).

Also, might not pro-choice, moderate R's Snowe and Collins vote to allow a vote (or perhaps even vote for Johnsen)?

And Nelson (the most rightwing Dem) has said he'll vote no on Johnsen. But he hasn't said what he'll do on cloture. And his history would suggest that he will allow a vote (i.e. yes on cloture, but no on the final vote). He has seldom voted against cloture even when he opposed the nominee.

I wonder if as Glenn suggests Reid wants to "lose" this one for some reason. Shades of telco immunity.

From Glenn's link (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/22/723297/-4-Star-General-Calls-for-Probe-of-Bush-White-House):

Having said that, it's almost an out of body experience to me to listen to this debate going on [whether these techniques were torture].

We should never as a policy maltreat people under our control, detainees.

We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during a course of that, both by the armed forces and CIA. [Releasing the memos] was the right thing to do.

I wonder what Brian Williams thinks?

Ed Morrissey at Malkin's HotAir:

Bybee and the OLC were asked what interrogators could do within the law, and instead the OLC reverse-engineered a legal opinion to allow them to violate it. I understand why they did, but it still violated the statute.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/04/17/the-odd-leap-in-the-interrogation-memos/

Tom Maguire:

The newly released torture memos are cold-blooded and clearly client-driven - the lawyers knew the answers they wanted and reasoned backwards.

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/04/everyone-gets-a-pass.html

I wonder if there would be enough bipartisan support to impeach (now federal judge) Bybee.

Rick Moran of Right Wing Nuthouse:

I don't want to be too hard on Joe Klein generally, but this euphemism for law-breaking made my jaw drop:

[I]n the intelligence culture, ... some operators are asked to behave extra-legally for the greater good of the nation.

This is in the context of CIA torture, so he is clearly talking about violations of US law not, say, spies violating the law of a foreign hostile nation to collect information there.

Link:

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/04/16/torture-memos-released/

John Yoo:

"Now that I'm not in the government, part of my role, because I have a certain amount of expertise, is to try to keep the government honest."

-- From an interview with the Orange County Register.

On the other hand, back when he was in government....

http://volokh.com/posts/1236201800.shtml

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/government-think-legal-2323245-people-decisions

As I understand it, the doctrine of standing is currently defined purely by legal precedent not legislation, but if Congress wanted to weigh in legislatively, they could. The doctrine is perfectly reasonable in most cases: if you can't find someone who was harmed then maybe you have no business introducing a suit. But cases like this where standing is difficult or impossible to prove because of secrecy are different. IMHO, it should be possible to introduce a suit based on it being in the public interest, without proving that any specific person was harmed.

In addition to Democrats, he would be an interesting Congressman to pressure to challenge the Obama DOJ on this. If he didn't approve of it when Bush was doing it, how can he possibly approve now that a Democratic president is? For him, the partisan juices and the principle (strange word in the context of Specter, I know) should align.