Around the Blogroll and Elsewhere: Special Permanent Blot on our National Reputation Edition

This is one of those mornings when I really want to write something and there's just no gray matter left. That's why I left it to Mr. Olbermann, who isn't waist deep in what sometimes feels like the equivalent of jumping into second year medical school with nothing but a tech school certificate in air conditioner repair, to opine on the Bush Administration torture memos released yesterday by the Obama Administration -- right before telling us that they don't plan to do a damn thing about them.

I still think that there was some sort of agreement hatched between the two administrations between the election and January 20th -- something along the lines of "We'll go quietly and not tell the country that the economy is too dire to risk a change of leadership, and in return you won't prosecute us." But that's just me. My brain is too busy trying to absorb the difference between hematology blood chemistry and how the hell we're going to lay out the form that captures study drug dose changes so that I can present it at a teleconference this morning so that I don't look like someone they just pulled off the street to deal with oncology data capture to even try to imagine what justification there can be for saying about now-known criminals, "We know they committed the most heinous of crimes, but we have to just look ahead." I mean, I can't even get out of a parking ticket by saying that, and Barack Obama wants to let a bunch of buys who are so evil that they clearly got a thrill, perhaps even a sexual one, off of torturing people they captured, off the hook.

I recognize that the Bush Junta left a mess the magnitude of which I don't think we even know yet, and perhaps Barack Obama does, and there's only so much that even SuperPresident can do at once. There's also this little problem of the "ZOMG THERE'S A BLACK MAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE" crowd who for some reason have adopted the slang of gay sex for their anti-government demonstrations after being silent for eight years while George Bush and Dick Cheney used the language of patriotism to spit on the Constitution. There's also this little matter of the media, which is predisposed to want to topple any Democratic president while giving a Republican one a free pass to commit the most heinous violations of everything humans hold decent. But perhaps the reason George Will is reduced to admonishing wealthy Americans to stop wearing blue jeans because it's unseemly is because there is just nothing in movement conservatism to defend anymore. The cerebral conservatism of William Buckley became the party of Dick Cheney and torture and is now the party of tantrum-throwing attention hogs like Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber, and teabaggers screaming about high taxes after theirs are cut.

So here I am, it's Friday, I'm wondering if I can just maybe spend the weekend cleaning my house instead of sitting in front of my work computer, and there just aren't words for what the government we employed for the past eight years is about to get away with.

So I'm kicking it over to some more inspired people, starting with Jonathan Turley on Rachel Maddow's show last night:

If you read nothing else about what our government did, read Digby here, here, and here.

Glenn Greenwald reprints some of the memos.

Stephen Reynolds wonders why the Bush Administration didn't get its inspiration from Indiana Jones movies (because sometimes you have to get your Roberto Benigni on or you'll scream).

Alex Koppelman offers links to the documents themselves and holds out a shred of hope that even though underlings won't be prosecuted (and I thought the Nuremburg trials did away with the "I was just following orders" defense) the Bush Administration officials who ordered it might. Note to Alex Koppelman: don't hold your breath.

It seems that I'm not the only one rendered at least temporarily speechless by what our government did, and by the current president's unwillingness to put justice ahead of temporary political expediency....either that or my progressive compatriots are still digesting how to respond in a way that doesn't throw Barack Obama under the bus but tries to find a way to demonstrate that he DOES have the political support, if he just turns off Morning Schmegegge and stops listening to Mike Barnicle and Pat Buchanan and Wolf Blitzer, for doing what a good Constitutional law professor should do. Ordinarily I find the Firedoglake folks rapidly joining the pull-up-the-ladder-behind-them brigade, but at least they're not ignoring the fact that the president we elected is about to let his predecessor get away with war crimes.