The disclosure this week of a March, 2003 memo from Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo, asserting that laws banning torture were trumped by the president’s authority as commander-in-chief in a time of war, appears to offer a direct line to subsequent abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.

In the film, Groundhog Day, the TV weatherman played by Bill Murray wakes up to the same day again and again.

In a Washington version of the film, the White House keeps nominating Steven G. Bradbury to run the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.