Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 1824
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@ Diana Powe
[Read the article: John Yoo -- then and now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So after a hectic week of believing that war was peace, that good was bad, that the moon was made of blue cheese, and that God needed a lot of money sent to a certain box number, the Monk started to believe that thirty-five percent of all tables were hermaphrodites, and then broke down. The man from the Monk shop said that it needed a whole new motherboard, but then pointed out that the new improved Monk Plus models were twice as powerful, had an entirely new multi-tasking Negative Capability feature that allowed them to hold up to sixteen entirely different and contradictory ideas in memory simultaneously without generating any irritating system errors, were twice as fast and at least three times as glib, and you could have a whole new one for less than the cost of replacing the motherboard of the old model.
With all due respect to Douglas Adams, who was a good and entertaining writer, certainly a nod needs to go to the master, the Rev. C.L. Dodgson:
"There is no use trying, said Alice; one can't believe impossible things.
I dare say you haven't had much practice, said the Queen. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
The Rethuglicans have had lots of practise.
Cheers,
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@ crazylibertarian
[Read the article: John Yoo -- then and now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Grrenwald [sic] should read the editorial before he bashes it
You might be advised to read a bit more Greenwald before jumping to the conclusion that Glenn hasn't read it.
It seems Greenwald is incapable of recognizing his own intellectual dishonesty. While Yoo may seem to be an ardent supporter of Bush, he does an excellent job of distinguishing between Clinton's impeachment and Bush's assertion of executive privilege.
No. For example:
[Yoo]: The issues at stake are light years from those of the Clinton years. Mr. Clinton was fighting claims of sexual harassment brought by Arkansas state employee Paula Jones, an independent counsel corruption investigation into Whitewater, and his extracurricular relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Mr. Clinton asserted executive secrecy to protect his personal affairs.
Yes, no, no, no, and no.
Specifically, the first, I'll agree on. There isn't much similarity. Here Congress, in its official capactity, is trying to find out WTF the White House is up to, and whether the USAG appointments w/o Senatue confirmation is a good thing.
On the second, Clinton never asserted executive privilege in the Jones case.
On the third, AFAIK, Clinton never asserted executive privilege in the Whitewater case.
On the fourth, Clinton only asserted executive privilege WRT gummint lawyers in the Lewinsky case, and there to protect other information and conversations, IIRC. But FWIW, he was willing to test it in court, and lost. Rather different from Dubya's attempts to keep the issue from ever getting to court.
On the fifth, Clinton did not assert executive privilege for his own personal affairs.
Mendacious and fallacious from top to bottom, this Yoo.
Then there's this:
[Yoo]: Presidents can't invoke executive privilege to protect information needed for a criminal investigation, except perhaps if national security is at stake. Kenneth Starr pursued Mr. Clinton not for harassing Paula Jones, or having a relationship with Monica Lewinsky, but because Mr. Clinton apparently committed perjury and obstructed criminal investigations....
A complete misrepresentation of the state of affairs. Starr was supposed to be looking into Whitewater (which had already been investigated and dismissed by the Republican Fiske). When Lewinsky fell into Starr's lap, he seized on the opportunity to make some political hay at least for his Republican masters. There was no (even alleged) "obstruct[ion of] criminal investigations" until after he started with his panty-sniffing (and he'd started his panty-sniffing even before Lewinsky showed up, sending FBI agents to ask about the RW/Arkansas-Project-invented "Danny Williams" faux 'scandal'). Both the "perjury" and "obstruction of criminal investigations" were bootstrapped on resisting his unwarranted panty-sniffing.
[Yoo again]: ... Senate Democrats have yet to show that the firings have arguably violated a single law....
How about the one prohibiting firing someone for taking time off for military duty, just for starters?
... Dumb and bad politics, maybe--criminal, no. If Senate Democrats really thought there was any crime here, then they ought to find somebody maliciously or politically prosecuted by a new U.S. attorney, or an FBI agent forced to drop a good case because of a new U.S. Attorney's partisan agenda.
The whole point of investigating is to find out if there's actually enough evidence to see if something criminal has happened. But FWIW, the "criminal" qualification here is a "red herring" by Yoo, because Congress is not a prosecutorial body, but they do have investigatory power related to their lawmaking function. And in the case of the USAs, they certainly can look into whether the appointment process (and/or regulatory legislation) needs some tweaks (or what kind of oversight might be needed in the "advice and consent" function they have).
Cheers,
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@ Karen M
[Read the article: John Yoo -- then and now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anyone here know a law student at Berkeley who would be willing to tell us something about Yoo's teaching evals?
I was there when Yoo first showed on the scene. He ended up as faculty advisor to the Boalt Federalist Society, of course. I was fortunate enough not to have him for any classes.
As for any incredulity that Yoo would be at Boalt, keep in mind that Berkeley is not the Berkeley of the 60's, and Boalt is not Berkeley. I was told beforehand that the student body was liberal, but the faculty tended towards the conservative (relative to law schools in general). They had some good liberals such as Franklin Zimring, Rachel Moran, Willie Fletcher (since nominated to the 9th Circuit by Clinton, and although held up by the Rethugs for a while, eventually confirmed), and Robert Post. Jesse Choper was there, but I think he's rather MOTR. OTOH, they also had the execrable (and insufferable) Philip Johnson.
Cheers,