Doesn't Lithwick's dissection of US torture policy miss important points? The policy was first decided upon by the Bush-Cheney regime, and afterwards their lawyers were ordered to scrape up justifications. Those lawyers who didn't go along with the policy were sidelined or scrapped. The fall-back on the Bauer character is of course no legal justification, but wasn't even that contrived? After all, the Fox network serves as the propaganda machine of the Bush-Cheney regime. Weren't the Bauer character's torture episodes scripted to manufacture justifications for the torture policy that was already ongoing? Those scripts prompted directly or indirectly by Bush-Cheney are then cited by Bush-Cheney as their rationale. Lithwick seems to think the lawyers were really taking a cue from Bauer, but weren't they actually merely doing assigned dirty work? And rehashing doctrines injected into television by their own bosses? As repugnant as the acts of those lawyers may have been, let's call to account the real culprits.