The two lawyers responsible for the torture memos, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, were originally judged by an internal Department of Justice enquiry to have committed "professional misconduct". This was then overruled and changed to have been guilty of "poor judgement". The official did say that the lawyers "mangled legal reasoning".

I - and others - have been saying all along that those responsible should be held accountable for their actions.

Last week, the NY Times published an editorial which slammed the DoJ decision to let Yoo and Bybee off.

As the dealings outlined in the original report underscore, the lawyers did not offer what most people think of as “legal advice.” Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee were not acting as fair-minded analysts of the law but as facilitators of a scheme to evade it. The White House decision to brutalize detainees already had been made. Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee provided legal cover.

Exactly - they were just giving the Bush administration the cover to do what they were already doing - which was torturing detainees.

The editorial concludes:

The quest for real accountability must continue. The alternative is to leave torture open as a policy option for future administrations.

It seems that we are not alone in wanting accountability. And so the quest will continue - no matter how much some wish that it will not.