It's political hype to defend the practices of Bush and Co
In some ways, the debate over the morality of such interrogation techniques — something we do not take a position on and will not be discussing here — has distracted many observers from examining the impact that the release of these memos is having on the ability of the U.S. government to fulfill its counterterrorism mission.
The debate over morality, which the article does not want to discuss, is the crux of the issue.
The CIA has gone through a number of demoralizing times. It's failure to predict the revolutions in Eastern Europe and the break up of the Soviet Union were huge blights on its credibility. I would think this incident, which involves a small number of actual CIA operatives, would be less of a psychological blow. Sure it sucks when someone comes in and says the orders you were following from the last Admin were a bad idea. These are not children though and they will get over it and go on with their jobs.