I fully agree that Yoo should not be transformed into a scapegoat, or decoy, to distract and divert critics from the overarching criminal nature of the present maladministration. Ideally, the focus should be top-down, so that the smaller fish are exposed in the context of the designs of their masters.

Tragically-- and infuriatingly-- both the self-serving Bush Crime Family collaborationists and allies and the political and law-enforcement elites have simply declined to further the cause of justice. It's been taken off the table, you see, and is reduced to scratching and knocking from beneath the table, mostly impotently.

I believe that this repression and frustration causes the uneven focus Glenn discusses. It's a bit similar to the fervent hope, even lust, to see reprobates like Scooter Libby "frog-marched" to the pokey. As Glenn notes, it's not that the Libbys and Yoos don't deserve all that and more; it's just that there is a danger of becoming so invested in inveighing against these smaller critters that the big fish-- or frogs, or whatever life-forms I'll drag into the metaphor next-- slip away into the murky depths.

I was typically cynical when Patrick Fitzgerald was investigating the Libby matter and various progressive blogs began exploding with premature hope and delight about the coming of "Fitzmas"; so many folks were certain that the dogged Fitzgerald was initiating the indictment of the criminal maladministration, and that catching the Libbyfish was only the beginning.

When it proved very much otherwise, and Libby was sent away with a presidential pat on the back and the prospect of a Medal of Freedom in the future, the hopeful progressives were fraught with disappointment, or at least a painful case of anticlimax. So indeed, it behooves us to keep Yoo in perspective.

He definitely remains on the A-list of criminals with high schadenfreude potential, though.

And it's bitterly ironic, at best, to listen to university authorities defend vicious creeps and charlatans like Yoo with the traditional rhetoric about academic freedom and the marketplace of ideas. None of that lofty sententiousness was employed to defend Ward Churchill or Norman Finkelstein, I notice. I wonder why?

Edney, not Orrick

Others may have pointed this out already, but the Dean's name is Edney. He holds the Orrick chair.

-- John Quiggin

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Well, he should be holding the Oreck vacuum cleaner, because he really sucks!

[rim shot]

I'll be here all week! Don't forget to tip the waitstaff!