Torture? Never! Extortion? Well, OK.

After all the hoopla over the Justice Department memo — the one that cleared the authors of the so-called terror memos, Jay Bybee and John Yoo, of official wrongdoing, but called their legal thoroughness into question — The Wall Street Journal today raised an interesting question about perspective.

While the Justice folks in this administration appear to abhor "torture" such as waterboarding and loud noises, they seem to have few qualms about threatening a suspect's possibly innocent parents with prosecution or deportation. Torture bad, extortion good?

Here's how the WSJ editorial phrases it: "In the latest case, (Afghan Najibullah) Zazi reportedly cooperated only after the feds charged his father with conspiracy and threatened his mother with deportation. That came well after his arrest. It's also amusing that critics who decry as 'torture' such interrogation techniques as isolation or exposure to heat and cold don't seem to mind threats to possibly innocent family members.

Sounds like a little situational ethics in the Obama administration.