However, Michael Kinsley has a wonderful law school logic-based response to those like Krauthammer who use the absurd ticking time bomb scenario to justify torture.

I really like it. It includes mockery of people who think that these impossible circumstances will ever arise:

Or what if an international terrorist planted a nuclear bomb somewhere in Manhattan, set to go off in an hour and kill a million people. You've got him in custody, but he won't say where the bomb is. Is it moral to torture him until he gives up the information?

Questions like these have been pondered and disputed since the invention of the college dorm, but rarely, until the past couple of weeks, unstoned.
...
Sure, if we could know the present and predict the future with certainty, we could torture only people who deserve it. Not just that: We could go door-to-door killing people before they kill others. We could lock up innocent people who would otherwise be involved in fatal traffic accidents.

He then moves on to a wonderful law school argument against salami slicing:

In law school, they call this second point, "salami-slicing." You start with a seemingly solid principle, then start slicing: If you would torture to save a million lives, would you do it for half a million? A thousand? Two dozen? What if there's only a two-out-of-three chance that person you're torturing has the crucial information? A 50-50 chance? One chance in 10? At what point does your moral calculus change, and why? Slice the salami too far, and the formerly solid principle disappears.

Finally, he comes to the conclusion anyone reasonable versed in the law should come up with, that is, torture is always bad and should never be tolerated, but if an episode of "24" is magically brought to life by your fairy godmother, you probably wouldn't be punished for saving a million lives, but that's no reason to lose the general rule. In other words, torture in that case is a little closer to civil disobedience. If this impossible circumstance were to actually emerge due to some oddball alignment of the planets anyone worth his salt wouldn't worry about the legal consequences of their actions, and would simply act to save the million lives. While illegal, it's worth whatever punishment you receive.

There is yet another law-school bromide: "Hard cases make bad law." It means that divining a general policy from statistical oddballs is a mistake. Better to have a policy that works generally and just live with a troublesome result in the oddball case.

I love this essay, he hits all the salient points on the head. An instant classic.