The ostensible news today is that the Justice Department is conducting full criminal investigations into the deaths of two Bush-era detainees while in CIA custody.

But let’s consider the historic implications. The President of the United States set up an officially authorized system of off-the-book, extralegal prisons and a regimen of government-sanctioned torture; and the consequences of this dark period will be — at most — two criminal prosecutions.

David Kurtz

David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.