To those of us that followed the Administration's legal positions with even a passing interest, the memos come as no surprise--they are the logical foundation of the Bush administration's positions not only in Hamdan, but also in the FISA cases and the congressional debate over telecom immunity. 

Still, release of the OLC memos is the critical first step towards finding out what really happened over the last eight years.  We now have public confirmation of the legal theories that the government followed.  The next inquiry goes to the facts.  The Justice Department believed that the president could set aside, inter alia, the First and Fourth Amendments over the course of the last seven years.  How were those powers used?  

This is how you build momentum for a truth commission and, ultimately, prosecutions.  It ain't going to be pretty.

Update: Yoo says not to judge those memos too harshly because they were not meant for public consumption.