Are we forever desensitized by torture in America?

I like to highlight the Post's consistent online successes when I can. Sometimes it seems there aren't a lot, but that's another topic. One of the lasting gems of the site is online discussions. They get some great guests, politics and otherwise. Today, they invited (a real) conservative writer Reihan Salam and Slate senior editor and legal blogger Dahlia Lithwick to talk about some of the "worst ideas" of the 2000s, an Sunday Outlook feature where Salam wrote about compassionate conservatism and Lithwick about the torture memos. They answered questions about those topics and suggestions from readers.

I was lucky enough to get a response on my torture memo question from the always insightful Lithwick. (I'm Des Moines. Sometimes I'm Baltimore. And I figured out why those two: one, I'm keeping touch with an outsider, Midwestern "perspective" with Des Moines and with Baltimore, I'm a east coaster, yet somewhat local to DC. Weird.)

Des Moines, Iowa: Thank you both for being with us and writing excellent, concise takes on these two "worst ideas" of the decade.

Re: torture memos, the tragic legacy of the memos has now become the apparent refusal of the Obama adm. to thoroughly investigate and prosecute those responsible. It's possibly the prime example of modern Washington's corroded morals. In refusing to rise above the "political ramifications" of taking such action, it seems Obama has simply left the door wide open for more abuses, as you alluded to Ms. Lithwick. Is it almost inevitable that we'll walk down this road again, but with even less resistance due to the institutionalization of torture?

washingtonpost.com: The torture memos (Post, Dec. 20)

Dahlia Lithwick: Hi there and thanks to all of you who read the feature and to those of you who are writing in. Des Moines, this is the question that worries me more than almost any other. Without accountability for the acts of torture and without a probing investigation into how this could have happened, it does seem almost inevitable that we will, sometime down the road, feel justified in doing it again. Certainly the Obama Administration has renounced torture and the memos I referenced were withdrawn. But the issue isn't just these memos but a legal process that was warped. My other nagging fear is that American public opinion has really shifted on torture. Remember how horrified we were by the images from Abu Ghraib? I am not sure we would be as horrified next time. Polling suggests we have come to think of abuse as justified in some instances, despite the fact that the legal prohibition is absolute.

Your Bush-Obama America, December 21, 2009.