The “torture memos” released Thursday show us how America’s gulags systematically and deliberately committed torture – a war crime – under explicit polcies of the Bush White House Office of Legal Counsel. President Obama’s decision to release the torture memos is a major step forward for the rule of law.

So much for that message discipline and failure to leak tour, Karl. Dickie Boy is peeved: In the waning days of the Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney launched a last-ditch campaign to persuade his boss to pardon Lewis (Scooter) Libby – and was furious when President George W. Bush wouldn’t budge.

It is ON, beyotches.

In a thoroughly unsurprising move, Bush chose to make sure that Libby will continue to shield his own role in the CIA leak case rather than pay Libby back for taking the fall for Bush and Cheney.

The “9/11 changed everything” crowd seem to be possessed of no firmer belief than that lying became acceptable in the aftermath for government officials when confronted by inquiry they deemed inappropriate. Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal comes to the defense of that great public servant Scooter Libby, and implores Bush to do the right thing and pardon him, or the “best people” aren’t gong to want to serve in Washington DC.

Dan Eggen in Christmas Day’s WaPo: President Bush took the remarkable step yesterday of reversing a pardon that he granted the day before to a Brooklyn, N.Y., real estate developer, whose relatives contributed more than $40,000 to Republicans before his clemency petition was filed with the White House.