[T]his DoD memo [...] is, quite literally, a cookbook approach for illegal government conduct. This memorandum lays out the substantive law on torture and how to avoid it. It then goes on to discuss the procedural mechanisms with which torture is normally prosecuted, and techniques for avoiding those traps. I have not seen the text of the memo, but from this report, it does not appear that it advises American personnel to comply with international or domestic law. It merely tells them how to avoid it. That is dangerous legal advice.

Marshall (on a point that Carter also covers):

I quote from the piece ...

To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a "presidential directive or other writing" that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is "inherent in the president."

So the right to set aside law is "inherent in the president". That claim alone should stop everyone in their tracks and prompt a serious consideration of the safety of the American republic under this president. It is the very definition of a constitutional monarchy, let alone a constitutional republic, that the law is superior to the executive, not the other way around. This is the essence of what the rule of law means --a government of laws, not men, and all that.

Now, we know that presidents sometimes break laws and they frequently bend them, if only in cases where the laws don't seem to anticipate a situation the president finds himself confronting. There is even an argument that the president can refuse to enforce laws he deems unconstitutional.

But there is no power inherent in the president simply to set aside the law. Richard Nixon famously argued that "when the president does it that means that it is not illegal." But the constitutional rulings emerging out of Watergate said otherwise. And history has been equally unkind to his claim.

Actually, let's not stop there, here's Billmon:

It's interesting to compare this doctrine of executive supremecy [...] with the more constricted view taken by conservative legal scholars when Clinton’s lawyers advanced the notion that perhaps, just maybe, the chief executive shouldn’t be subject to private harassment suits during his term in office. But, as we all know, 9/11 changed everything.

The question, however, is whether everything will change back the next time a Democrat takes the oath of office. Having asserted – and made such fateful use of – the dictatorial powers outlined in the Pentagon’s legal torture guide, how comfortable will our GOP legal warriors be when and if the opposition lays its hands on those same powers?

I don’t ordinarily go in for paranoid conspiracy theories, but thinking about the political implications of the legal castle the Bush administration has constructed for itself – and the possible consequences of being evicted from that fortress, I can’t help but be reminded of ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern’s recent warning:

The key question for the next five months, then, becomes how far the administration will go. An elevated threat level justifying martial law and postponement of the election? No doubt such suggestions will seem too alarmist to those trusting that there is a moral line, somewhere, that the president and his senior advisers would not cross. I regret very much to note that their behavior over the past three years leaves me doubtful that there is such a line.

Raving paranoia? Go back and read that bit about "authority to set aside the laws is inherent in the president." You just might be hearing more about that, one of these days.

Kevin Drum correctly identifies the ultimate source of the problem:

Why has torture been such a hot topic since 9/11? The United States has fought many wars over the past half century, and in each of them our causes were just as important as today's, information from prisoners would have been just as helpful, and we were every bit as determined to win as we are now. But we still didn't authorize torture of prisoners. FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, LBJ, Reagan — all of them knew it wasn't right, and the rest of us knew it as well.

So what's different this time? Only one thing: the name of the man in the White House. Under this administration, we seem to have lost the simple level of moral clarity that allowed our predecessors to tell right from wrong. It's time to reclaim it.

And Brad deLong is succinct and clear:

I see no way to evade the conclusion that George W. Bush has failed to fulfill his constitutional obligations under Article II §3, and deserves to be impeached. Now.

Update: The full text of the "torture memo" is available from the Center for Constitutional Rights, the people representing the Gitmo detainees.

Update: Fixed the spelling of "supremacy" in the entry title.