For Tsipras, the youngest leader to hold high office in modern times, what lies ahead is a litany of choices with potentially explosive effect.
The litany of brutality, lawlessness and lack of accountability serves as a reminder of what a horrible decision President Obama made at the outset of his administration to close the books on this chapter in our history, even as he repudiated the use of torture.
A litany of bad economic news sent leading shares lower once more, but engineering group Amec bucked the trend after a positive update.
Though Obama critics can reliably add the NSA's overreach to their litany of complaints about the administration, it does not fit easily into the "angry socialist Muslim" narrative that winds through the other scandals they use to gin up support.
As Snowden said, what made him blow his whistle was not the material itself but "the continuing litany of lies" from intelligence chiefs to Congress.
Contained within an appeal to the UN Committee Against Torture – the same watchdog that has looked into Guantánamo Bay and the police killing in Ferguson, Missouri – were a litany of tales describing highly damaging abuse and injustice, completely out of step with alleged crimes.
There was just a litany of the lobbies to which Cameron has come to be increasingly in thrall: the publicists for the crazy HS2 and other vanity projects such as the Manchester science centre, the Swansea barrage and the continuing Olympics "legacy".
The true legacy of the Olympics is this litany of collapsed deals and broken promises by a confusing array of quangos and companies.
