It’s all about the context

The Justice Dept exonerates John Yoo & Jay Bybee, overriding its own Office of Professional Responsibility, because “the ethics lawyers, in condemning the lawyers’ actions, had given short shrift to the national climate of urgency in which Mr. Bybee and Mr. Yoo acted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. ‘Among the difficulties in assessing these memos now over seven years after their issuance is that the context is lost,’ Mr. Margolis said.” So that’s okay then.

(Update: Yoo said in as many words that the president can order a village of civilians massacred.)