When President-elect Barack Obama first considered John Brennan for director of the CIA, one of his supporters, an erstwhile War on Terror hawk, implored him not to.

“[I]f Obama picks him, it will be a vindication of the kind of ambivalence and institutional moral cowardice that made America a torturing nation,” wrote the blogger Andrew Sullivan. “It would be an unforgivable betrayal of his supporters and his ideals.”