So don't be surprised if some time before Inauguration Day 2009, President George W. Bush issues a blanket presidential pardon to ensure that those who organized and implemented brutal interrogation techniques such as "waterboarding" (a terrifying simulated drowning) are never hauled before the courts. A pardon would prevent future administrations from ever prosecuting those responsible for torture and other mistreatment at Guantánamo Bay and secret CIA detention facilities elsewhere overseas.

The president may well want to protect loyalists who designed or oversaw his most secretive tactics in the war on terror, and behind closed doors he may be under some pressure to do so. If in the end Bush pardons the stewards of his interrogation policies it would be a final act of injustice by a president whose legacy includes running roughshod over fundamental freedoms and undermining America's ability to promote human rights abroad.