It's been bemusing to watch the media 'debate' over the torture memos and whether the Obama White House should just drop the matter. Lots (most?) media elites argue that that's the best strategy, hinting that only partisan loons would want to hold an exiting administration accountable for wrongdoing. That's dismissed as nasty “retribution.”

Allison Kilkenny at HuffPost helps put into context the media's current blinders:

Apparently, upholding the law is now a fringe issue. Those on the "hard left " want accountability, and the serious beltway “journalists” want to “keep walking” away from “retribution” so as to maintain life's sweet “mystery.”

But boy, it was hard to find any members of the punditocracy in early 2001 who argued that point when Congress launched hearings and investigations into the Clinton pardons and gift 'scandal' after that Dem team had left the White House. Back then the message was clear: only partisan loons wouldn't want to hold the exiting administration accountable for wrongdoing.