The New York Times (finally) editorializes on President Bush’s knowledge and approval of US torture policies.

The amount of time and energy devoted to this furtive exercise at the very highest levels of the government reminded us how little Americans know, in fact, about the ways Mr. Bush and his team undermined, subverted and broke the law in the name of saving the American way of life.

We have questions to ask, in particular, about the involvement of Ms. Rice, who has managed to escape blame for the catastrophic decisions made while she was Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, and Mr. Powell, a career Army officer who should know that torture has little value as an interrogation method and puts captured Americans at much greater risk. Did they raise objections or warn of the disastrous effect on America’s standing in the world? Did anyone?

Mr. Bush has sidestepped or quashed every attempt to uncover the breadth and depth of his sordid actions. Congress is likely to endorse a cover-up of the extent of the illegal wiretapping he authorized after 9/11, and we are still waiting, with diminishing hopes, for a long-promised report on what the Bush team really knew before the Iraq invasion about those absent weapons of mass destruction — as opposed to what it proclaimed.

At this point it seems that getting answers will have to wait, at least, for a new Congress and a new president. Ideally, there would be both truth and accountability. At the very minimum the public needs the full truth.

Some will call this a backward-looking distraction, but only by fully understanding what Mr. Bush has done over eight years to distort the rule of law and violate civil liberties and human rights can Americans ever hope to repair the damage and ensure it does not happen again. [Emphasis added]

I challenge the NY Times editorial board to not forget this editorial nor their request for truth and accountability stemming from the Bush administration’s violations of American and international law. They are right that there will be many – Republicans, DC pundits, and calcified Democrats – that don’t want to spend time finding out what went wrong inside the Bush White House and who must be held accountable for it. In fact, I expect this position to be pushed for with deafening volume. It will be up to major media outlets like the Times to stand in the way of this desire to level down and gloss over the violations of the rule of law. Without major media outlets advocating for truth and accountability, none will take place. Again, I hope that the editors of the New York Times do not forget the words they wrote today come January, 2009.