This article may be commentary, but it uses a very lawyerly approach to its conclusion by introducing the witnesses, providing the background, informing the public deed and most importantly tying together the criticism at that time as well as now. This isn't as much opinion as it is discovery. The players the context and the depth of the collusion are truly the affirmation of what many qualified Americans have alleged. The only opinion here was the choice of metaphor. Very well done.

In this powerful report, lawyer and journalist Scott Horton writes about congressional attempts to identify Americans responsible for torture. He recounts how the Bush administration first decided to blame a few rotten apples and even scapegoated some in staged show trials. When further disclosures arose, the administration created a new myth that blamed low-level officers. Horton says the evidence actually points to a top-down process involving senior administration officials who demanded use of brutal techniques, over strong opposition from career professionals. Horton says, in two hours of Congressional testimony, William J. Haynes II managed 23 don’t recalls, 22 don’t remembers, 16 don’t knows, and various other ... More »

This article has the guts of the story correct but veers into conclusions that are unsubstantiated by his article. It's not that his conclusions are incorrect just unsupported in his presentation.

the writing strategy in this--to describe for us each action mr. haynes participated in, as one which he has 'forgotten', in his testimony, effectively underlines those actions and gives them more power and clarity than the typical recitation would. in laying it out this way, the lack of integrity, the criminality of this tactic is compelling for the reader. we then must look forward to some just outcome.

Very well-written account about how a mid-level Administration official has used so-called ignorance in order to cover-up the reality of torture.