Glenn Greenwald, per usual, has been great covering the release of the OLC torture memos and what responses should stem from them.

I think he really makes clear the point I was trying to make yesterday about the imperative for citizens to defend the rule of law in America:

Either we care about the rule of law or we don’t — and if we do, we’ll find the ways to demand its application to the politically powerful criminals who broke multiple laws over the last eight years.  Obama’s release of those torture memos yesterday makes that choice unambiguously clear and enables the right to choice to be made.

In the absence of clear political leadership to ensure that the rule of law is preserved and those who are guilty of crimes during the Bush administration are prosecuted for their actions, it’s up to the public to make up the difference. We must seek to compel elected officials to treat these violations with the seriousness they deserve and not hide behind courses of action that may be popular in the halls of Congress and with the deferential Beltway press corps.

The rights afforded to citizens in the Constitution exist as long as we demand violations of those rights be stopped and the violators held accountable. The same can be said of the rule of law in America. It exists only so long as we care to ensure it exists. The Bush administration – specifically the top lawyers of the OLC, Vice President Cheney and President Bush – acted to actively and persistently subvert our laws. The evidence has never been more clear.

I’ve yet to see activism in response to the OLC memos coalesce. But I hope it’s strong, forceful, and persistent. Every member of Congress should be a target. And people should be judged very critically for their responses when in opposition to the rule of law in America.