And It's On...Sorta...

From the WashPo:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided to appoint a prosecutor to examine nearly a dozen cases in which CIA interrogators and contractors may have violated anti-torture laws and other statutes when they allegedly threatened terrorism suspects, according to two sources familiar with the move.

Holder is poised to name John Durham, a career Justice Department prosecutor from Connecticut, to lead the inquiry, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is not complete.

Durham's mandate, the sources added, will be relatively narrow: to look at whether there is enough evidence to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of current and former CIA personnel who may have broken the law in their dealings with detainees. Many of the harshest CIA interrogation techniques have not been employed against terrorism suspects for four years or more.

Doesn't look like you'll see anything going beyond a few agents. I think the way this is going, and the general lack of outrage from Americans, says a lot about what we value. I really have no doubt that we could--indeed would--start torturing again, in the event of another terrorist attack. Maybe not under Obama, but certainly the take-away is that the executive is going to get a great deal of lee-way on these cases.