Following up on my last post and Dan’s comment, I will borrow from a far better wordsmith than myself:

Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to “protect” us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from “another 9/11,” torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House’s illegality.

– Frank Rich, NYT, 4/25/09

Rich goes on to propose that the best way forward would be for the DOJ to appoint a panel of non-partisan outsiders, such as retired federal judges, to analyze all the information and set the wheels in motion for the correct prosecution. While I was not a fan of Obama’s initial response, I have come around to understanding that his relative lack of outrage is calculated to ensure that this investigation is handled in a non-partisan manner. The gravity of the information now available is strong enough to stand on its own, and I suspect that many Republicans will end up supporting such an investigative commission.