It is official: sanctioning torture is not punishable.

Late Friday is when government officials make announcements that they hope will go little noticed. Here is today's, found first not on the NYT or WaPo websites but in the British Guardian's:

An inquiry by the US justice department last night reprimanded two senior Bush era lawyers who approved the use of torture at Guantánamo Bay. The department found the two lawyers, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, guilty of poor judgment but not professional misconduct.

Either this is yet more politically motivated deliberate and disgraceful misinterpretation of the law or the seemingly clear laws against torture, including the Geneva Conventions, are absolutely useless. I can see no possible third alternative. Evidentally an Administration willing to politicize the DOJ can do whatever it pleases with impunity and even count on a successor Administration to acquiesce to its malfeasance.