On April 2, The New York Times published an article entitled: NY 03 U.S. Memo Approved Harsh Interrogations
.
Reading this article, I was torn as to how to feel. As a budding lawyer who has taken the federally mandated ethics exam, the idea that we are officers of the court has been drilled into my head. Lawyers have an obligation to not misrepresent the law, regardless of whether it is hurtful to our case. With this principle in mind, I had a hard time sympathizing with the OLC lawyers underfire over the Bybee memo and the waterboarding controversy.

That being said, I am also a realist. I realize that the OLC lawyers, although meant to be independent, are under pressure to please their clients, which in this situation is the Bush Administration. Furthermore, in the aftermath of 9/11, the country was caught up in an atmosphere of fear and terror. People were scrambling to find ways in which to cope with the atrocities that had happened. The administration felt the pressure to but didn't know how to catch "the bad guys." Therefore, the lawyers at the OLC may have been inclined to read the law in such a way that it would give Americans the tools to catch those that threatened our safety and way of life. This mentality I can understand. I'm not saying that I approval of it from a legal ethics standpoint, but I can understand it.

This leads me to my current conundrum. Dont' get me wrong, I am outraged at the audacity of the current administration's attempt to scapegoat their blatant flouting of international law. However, there is a small part of me that feels that the OLC attorneys should not have taken a part in creating a situation which has been turned around and used against them.