Chutzpah Alert
On the chutzpah scale this one is off the charts. John Yoo, the author of the infamous torture memo and John Bolton, chief advocate of nuking Iran, have chosen to give the nation a lecture on the Constitutionthis morning. They are worried President Obama might work with other countries to try to slow global warming, leading to "draconian restrictions on energy use". The thought that James Imhoffe and a small cabal of Senate climate Change deniers couldn't hold this up under the treaty clause has them deeply troubled.
Given that these two mugs were chief enablers of Bush and Cheney's wholesale flouting of the Constitution, they are hardly the appropriate teachers of constitutional law. Yoo will be a case study for the next century in the exploitation of legal loopholes ("it's not torture unless there is organ failure") that always say the end justifies the means. That the New York Times would give them a platform for this without a hint of irony is mind-boggling. They both should be stripped of their license to practice law, let alone teach it.
Someone, please, tell me how these "great legal minds" can selectively use whatever legal theory they want to justify the outcome they desire? I mean, isn't that anathema to Rule of Law? And a legal system based on stare decisis? And yes, I include Scalia in this one. when he's not trying to confuse you with overly abundant footnotes. The more footnotes, the more brilliant, after all. 'Course, by the time I was in my senior year of high school, *my* teachers didn't let ME get away with that any longer.
How can Mr. Yoo justify a president's power to torture people while at the same time argue that the president doesn't have the power to stop pollution? Or are there enough lawyers out there incapable of ever looking at context beyond the immediate facts at hand? And since when was there a "everything is different when it relates to 'national security'" loophole in the constitution that I missed in law school? I *knew* I should have studied harder. Darn Green Leafe pub.
The Supreme Court once supported Japanese internment. And then 40 years later apologized for its mistake. Not that people should ever learn from mistakes or anything.
January 5, 2009 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lawyers are a crafty bunch (my daughter's one so I have first hand knowledge). When they don't want the right answers, they ask the wrong questions. Most evident when they're in the political arena.
January 5, 2009 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
GC, that is brilliant! Figure out a way to put it on a bumper sticker!
January 5, 2009 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
If I could, I'd be in advertising. :o)
January 5, 2009 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
This neocomradely sophistry can scarcely be said to be a success, but one can see what Yoo, Esq., is up to and why he must think it is really kinda nifty.
The basis of the attempted swindle is "unwise foreign commitments ... binding down American power and interests in a dense web ... 'entangling alliances,' as Thomas Jefferson described them ... not to subordinate policies, foreign or domestic, to international control ... an administration determined to tie one hand behind America’s back ...."
Prof. Dr. Lone Ranger (and Tonto von Bolton) would not mind the unconstitutional enactment of DIS-entanglin’ alliances, you see, but unfortunately there are not too many of that type available. This disproportion is not their fault, of course, nor the fault of any other Big Party neocomrade, 'tis but the way in which the world happens to work.
Should some congregation of the Lesser Breeds Without ever get together and resolve to make POTUS their hegemon forever and fortify Him with utterly unchecked discretionary powers, Neocomrade J. Yoo, Esq., could be relied on to think it a perfect and adequate ratification for Himself to initial the memo and not trouble Congress with so trivial a matter at all.
Yoo and Tonto are consistent enough, but you have to understand exactly what it is they are bein’ consistent about.
Happy days.
(( I notice that both have now become card-carryin' AEIdeologues. There is no doubt that the American Ideological Enterprise rots the brains of its victims, but at least Yoo still has a little somethin’ to rot. Unlike .... ))
January 5, 2009 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's GOT to be a reason someone thought to put in the "treaties" part of the supremacy clause. I mean, the document's not that long. I assume there was SOME reason. But every court opinion I've ever read even remotely addressing the issue pays it, at best, lip service.
Someone posted earlier about human tribalism. It's good to know the Courts exhibit the same traits. They, after all, are very quick to state that our domestic laws apply overseas only when it's foreigners hurting us...but not the other way 'round.
They can only get away with saying we should blow up the UN because they make it irrelevant by saying we should blow up the UN.
January 5, 2009 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
And people listen to these guys...why????? Yoo is totally unamerican, no matter what his citizenship.
January 5, 2009 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-ambler/mr-gore-apology-accepted_b_154982.html
Time to get on board. You are behind HuffPo.
January 5, 2009 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bush to John Yoo; "John, we need you to craft an opinion that legalizes the use concentration camps inside the United states."
John Yoo to Bush: "Coming right up, Chief."
January 5, 2009 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess I used to be a Bush basher but I am attempting to grow, to reach the maturity of say a Gregory or a Gibson.
A man imagines, publicly, that there it would be better if everything at the UN Building above the 11th floor should be blown off. Nobody would miss anyone above the 11th floor, he says.
So w says to himself, that is my kind of guy. Why don't I just appoint him as Ambassador to the UN.
Another man imagines that treaties are passe and that the Bill of Rights do not need to be strictly adhered to during a Time of War.
And w says, this guy is great. I can do anything I wish to do as long as I can keep us at war.
So he makes him one of his top White House attorneys.
See, I am starting to 'get it.' If only I had listened to one of those Republican Think Tanks.(I used to deem that a contradiction in terms.) I am starting to see the light.
Forget about the evolution of Constitutional Rights in this country. Let us go back a hundred years or so when they lynched Negroes, and put people in prison for what they wrote.
Forget about the evolution of human rights in this country and abroad. Why should the word Geneva have such an aura anyway?
Forget about America's dedication to Human Rights and the dream of working with nations, communicating with nations. Right on our own shore with the UN Building.
I am beginning to see the light.
But then I wake up and say to myself after reading articles like this one:
"WHY ARE NOT THESE BASTARDS IN PRISON?"
January 5, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't answer that knock on your door if you know what's good for you, DD!
January 5, 2009 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Honestly, without your humor.... I'd go nuts!
January 5, 2009 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Glad to perform my cheery service! Seriously, TheraP -- believe it or not -- some people do not appreciate my sense of humor! I know it is hard to believe; but it's true!
Only the really smart ones do. Says a lot about both of us, eh?
January 5, 2009 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
well.... in all humility... ok...
January 5, 2009 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I got it. But then again THEY have been looking for me for a long time. At least that is what I tell my therapist.
January 5, 2009 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
That little "clicking" on your phone is not because the tower is getting blown in the wind. Just sayin'
BTW, I have some unused bedrooms and the feds don't know me. There is, however a feral cat who comes in through my dog-door and pees all over stuff!
January 5, 2009 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's have a "title Yoo's Lecture" contest.
Here's my go:
The Constitution: Worth Standing For. For Hours.
January 5, 2009 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about this?
Per Yoo--
The Constitution: Worth standing on top of as you wet your pants.
January 5, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, let's hear it for yanking their licenses!
January 5, 2009 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
What?
John Yoo may have different views on politics, the Constitution, and torture from yours, but he's a distinguished attorney and scholar and a great legal mind.
As a lawyer for the White House, John Yoo (or anyone else) SHOULD look for a legal justification for what the elected representatives of the people want. If you'll recall, the Supreme Court once actually approved those concentration camps ("Korematsu").
This is not Soviet Russia. Differing views on the law and on politics are tolerated and encouraged in this country. I disagree with John Yoo myself on many or most Constitutional issues about which I know his views. But I respect John Yoo as a person and as an attorney, and I wish him the best now that his employer has been defeated democratically.
That's how, and why, the system works.
January 6, 2009 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Incidentally, I don't know if anyone is paying attention to Mr. Yoo's arguments in great (and legal) detail, but he published a paper in 2000 arguing FOR the legal theory he just rejected:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=255304
Basically, Mssrs. Yoo and Bolton argue that by using the relatively quick-and-easy executive-congressional agreement procedure for treaty creation, Obama will ruinously "entangle" us in overly burdensome foreign alliances that will impermissible restrain US sovereignty. As you can see from the article abstract above, Mr. Yoo once thought these ECAs were just great and absolutely legal.
January 6, 2009 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
And to add further irony to all this, the Uruguay Round Amendments Act (e.g., the GATT legislation from 1994 that opened up much of the free trade whirlwind) was done via executive-legislative agreement. So the bottom line is that these unconstitutional agreements that unwisely tie us down are the very same ones that enabled the kind of free trade and economic model that Yoo and his ilk advocated. Cognitive disconnect, though, from someone who sees legal ambiguity in the application of a lighter to a child's testicles, should come as no surprise. Others may have respect for the character of such a man, but I do not.*
I'm surprised that the Times published this crap. I hope they put up a rebuttal.
* I'm sure he has his good points. I just don't care what they are.
January 6, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink