Dispatches from the Culture Wars

And she lays out the evidence contained in that report:

That's in fact what National Security Counsel legal advisor John Bellinger suggested, perhaps inadvertently, when he told the OPR investigators, as they describe in their report: "Yoo was 'under pretty significant pressure to come up with an answer that would justify [the program]' and that, over time, there was significant pressure on the Department to conclude that the program was legal and could be continued, even after changes in the law in 2005 and 2006."

The final report provides lots more evidence of that. For example, Yoo began drafting the sections of a memo concluding that the president has extraordinary power to ignore the law and setting out several possible defenses to torture directly after a meeting at the White House. Although Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Patrick Philbin told Yoo that "he thought the sections were superfluous and should be removed," Philbin said that "Yoo responded,'They want it in there.'" OPR recounts that "Philbin did not know who 'they' referred to and did not inquire; rather, he assumed that it was whoever had requested the opinion."

Because of the urgency of the process - there are frequent references to time pressures imposed by the White House throughout the report -- Philbin advised Bybee that he could sign the opinion despite its problematic sections on defenses and executive power because "they are telling us this has to be signed tonight."

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, meanwhile, who was White House counsel at the time the memos were drafted, told OPR that he didn't recall discussing the two controversial sections of the memo, but "speculated that because David Addington had strong views on the Commander-in-Chief power, he may have played a role in developing that argument."

Gonzales later commented that Addington was " 'an active player' in providing his view and input on the draft memorandum."

"I'd be very surprised if David [Addington] did not participate in the drafting of this document," Gonzales said at one point.

But if OLC's job is to provide the executive branch with objective legal advice, then why would the Vice President's legal advisor actively participate in the OLC memo drafting process? Addington appears to have been not just interested in the outcome, but eager to influence it.

It should also be noted that there were voices in the administration that disagreed with Yoo's legal argument, including Michael Chertoff and the Pentagon Working Group on interrogations. And this shows just how silly Yoo's argument was:

Philbin and Chertoff also both expressed concerns about the "specific intent" required by Yoo's definition of torture, which seemed to excuse anything except sheer sadism. The Bybee memo, for example, principally authored by Yoo and signed by Bybee, who was then head of the office, concluded that an interrogator could torture subjects so long as he didn't have the intent to cause them severe pain or harm:

"Even if the defendant knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent even though the defendant did not act in good faith."

But as former Acting OLC director Daniel Levin told OPR: "It sort of suggested that if I hit you on the head with a, you know, steel hammer, even though I know it's going to cause specific pain, if the reason I'm doing it is to get you to talk rather than to cause pain, I'm not violating the statute. I think that's just ridiculous...It's just not the law."