Eric Holder is going to appoint a career prosecutor to investigate special prosecutor to examine whether Bush administration interrogations conducted by the CIA were legal. Good for him. But the real question is whether the prosecutor will have the authority to examine not only (or even primarily) the front-line interrogators, but whether the prosecutor is free to climb the ladder of authority should his investigation warrant it, even if the climb is to the highest levels in the Bush administration. The leadership clearly set the tone and directed a strained legal interpretation that was the basis of the programs

Update 2: Andrew Sullivan correctly feared precisely this result. And Glenn Greenwald is properly outraged.