Bybee said he was issuing a statement following reports that he had regrets over his role in the memorandums, including an article in The Washington Post on Saturday to that effect. Given the widespread criticism of the memorandums, he said he would have done some things differently, like clarifying and sharpening the analysis of some of his answers to help the public better understand the basis for his conclusions.

You know what that bolded sentence sounds like?  It sounds exactly what you'd expect from a slacker student in law school who's making excuse after excuse to his professor about why he didn't do the proper research for a case.  "I should have explained this better." "I wasn't clear enough."  Shades of Alberto Gonzales repeatedly saying "I don't recall [insert bullshit assertion here]," indeed.

Alberto Gonzales -- "I don't recall...."

Actually, I take that back.  Bybee's analysis of the torture memos was pretty clear.  Here's a sample of what is written in that memo:

"[F]or an act to constitute torture, it must inflict pain that is difficult to endure. Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

"For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture, it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years."

"[E]ven if the defendant knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent even though the defendant did not act in good faith. Instead, a defendant is guilty of torture only if he acts with the express purpose of inflicting severe pain or suffering on a person within his custody or physical control.

"[U]nder the current circumstances, necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate Sections 2340A."

Clarifying and sharpening the analysis?  The analysis seems pretty crystal clear to me.  It's not torture because the "intentions are good."  It's not torture because the intent isn't "pain or suffering," even though extreme pain and suffering was exactly what they got from waterboarding prisoners (without the desired results of stopping a terrorist attack, the very reason they defend torture in the first place).

Here's what you should have done, Mr. Bybee: YOU NEVER SHOULD HAVE JUSTIFIED TORTURE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

But wait!  There's more.

Other administration lawyers agreed with [Bybee's] conclusions, Judge Bybee said.

But he said: "The central question for lawyers was a narrow one; locate, under the statutory definition, the thin line between harsh treatment of a high-ranking Al Qaeda terrorist that is not torture and harsh treatment that is. I believed at the time, and continue to believe today, that the conclusions were legally correct."

You certainly do, Mr. Bybee.  You believe it because the Bush Administration wanted you and many others in the Justice Department to justify something that is explicitly outlawed both by our Constitution and the Geneva Conventions.

Article 3 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) Taking of hostages;

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

Oh, that pesky little detail, the rule of law.  Too bad an esteemed lawyer and judge such as yourself couldn't, uh, FOLLOW it.

Another juicy bit:

"The legal question was and is difficult," [Bybee] said. "And the stakes for the country were significant no matter what our opinion. In that context, we gave our best, honest advice, based on our good-faith analysis of the law."

Ah yes, our old friend the ticking time bomb theory.  The stakes were so high, we just HAD to torture those prisoners.  That scenario exists only in 24 and the heads of Bush apologists, and it still doesn't justify immoral torture techniques which have proven ineffective at getting reliable information anyway.

Yet, something (among many things) doesn't compute here.  We have to torture these prisoners because our national security is at stake....yet that didn't preclude Bybee from signing a legally unfounded and reprehensible memo that Bybee himself tries to excuse as needing further "clarifying and sharpening" of the analysis.

My head is spinning.  Here's one last little gem from the NYT story:

In a reunion of law clerks last May at a Las Vegas restaurant, first reported by The Recorder, a California legal newspaper, Judge Bybee also spoke about his work at the Office of Legal Counsel, first saying he was proud of the work he had done as a judge and the help given him by his clerks. He then said, according to several witnesses, "I wish I could say that of the prior job I had."

Oh, that poor, POOR man!  He's not proud of his work in the DOJ.  What a sad, sad story!

Cry me a fucking river, Bybee.  You weren't the one being tortured, so don't give me any of that baloney over how not proud you are over what you did.  Where were you seven years ago speaking out about how not proud you were of your job?  Where were you seven years ago saying that the legal justification for torture was trash, and that the techniques should never have been authorized?

But you're in luck, Bybee.  I'm not proud of you either.  Neither are the millions of other Americans who want you thrown out of a job and put in jail for war crimes.

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Cross-posted at Daily Kos

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UPDATE: Think Progress reports that the DOJ  is currently conducting a review of Mr. Bybee.

The New York Times's Charlie Savage recently reported that the review could find that Bybee's office changed its legal views to cater to policy makers.

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has been investigating the work of lawyers who signed off on the interrogation policy, and is believed to have obtained archived e-mail messages from the time when the memorandums were being drafted.

If it turned out that the lawyers initially concluded that aspects of the proposed program would be illegal, then reversed that conclusion at the request of policy makers, then prosecutors could make a case that the officials knowingly broke the law.