Yoo and Bybee: Not war criminals after all!

The Wall Street Journal on the Office of Professional Responsibility’s report on Bush administration lawyers tasked with the unenviable duty of deciding what is and isn’t legal in the war on terror:

The larger story here is the vindication of Mr. Yoo and the other Bush attorneys, who were pilloried unfairly over ethics in what was really a policy dispute in the war on terror. Democrats wanted to appease the anti-antiterror left, and they fixed on punishing mid-level officials as prominent enough to get public attention but not so prominent as to seem like a banana republic seeking revenge against a former President or Vice President. Their campaign has now been exposed as a partisan, and unethical, smear.

That strikes me as about right. A little more, from the Corner:

This is bad news for Holder and certain other Obama appointees at Justice — it undermines the story they’ve been telling for years that the lawyers who found the CIA program lawful were sadistic criminals committed to torturing poor souls such as Khalid Sheik Muhammad — but it is a vindication of an important principle that, prior to the Holder reign, had been adhered to across administrations: honestly held legal and policy opinions are not cause for prosecution or professional discipline.

Again, this strikes me as mostly right: The case against Yoo and Bybee was always about criminalizing policy differences. Sure, it was talked about in heated rhetoric — War crimes!! Torture!! Crushed testicles!! — but the simple fact of the matter is that John Yoo was asked to render an opinion on the legal questions at hand, not to make policy or carry out that policy. Making the rendering of an honest opinion illegal strikes me as an incredibly pernicious attack on the independence of those working in the government.