The New York Times buries the lede:

…..some lawyers and law professors are raising a related question: Will Mr. Bush grant pre-emptive pardons to officials involved in controversial counterterrorism programs?

Such a pardon would reduce the risk that a future administration might undertake a criminal investigation of operatives or policy makers involved in programs that administration lawyers have said were legal but that critics say violated laws regarding torture and surveillance.

Some legal analysts said Mr. Bush might be reluctant to issue such pardons because they could be construed as an implicit admission of guilt. But several members of the conservative legal community in Washington said in interviews that they hoped Mr. Bush would issue such pardons — whether or not anyone made a specific request for one. They said people who carried out the president’s orders should not be exposed even to the risk of an investigation and expensive legal bills.

“The president should pre-empt any long-term investigations,” said Victoria Toensing, who was a Justice Department counterterrorism official in the Reagan administration. “If we don’t protect these people who are proceeding in good faith, no one will ever take chances.”

Bush does not pardon out of a compassion, he does not believe in that.

He will pardon for personal and political advantage.

Thus, I expect blanket pardons of his His Evil Minions^™, because otherwise, Bush would be in the dock himself.

When Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, many in Washington, particularly Republicans came to believe that immunity from lawbreaking was a birthright, and so they have been increasingly brazen in breaking laws.

These people need to spend time in prison. Real ones. Medium security at least.