Letters to the Editor
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pantanal
According to Yoo, only Bush can determine the limits of his power and authority and that he's entitled, as CIC to determine, should he wish to, that there are no limits to his authority.
Under the ultimate authority granted by Yoo's novel legal theories, Bush could decide that the election of a Democrat as POTUS constitutes an unacceptable risk to the security of the nation and declare himself president-for-life, nullifying the results of the election.
It wouldn't surprise me at all to see the American people accept such a "soft coup", as long as their bread and circuses were not significantly interrupted.
Keep American Idol on and the beer and pretzels flowing and America will remain somnolent.
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Close only counts in horseshoes and nuclear weapons
February 2003: Only 27% opposed military action, the smallest percentage since the polls began in April of 2002.
April 2003: A poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News found that 72% of Americans supported the Iraq War, despite finding no evidence of chemical or biological weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_popular_opinion_on_invasion_of_Iraq
Q.E.D.
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Gee
Denning: NYT is reporting today that former AG Alberto Gonzales is having a hard time finding a job at any law firm.
And he can't even claim unemployment benefits because he wasn't fired, he quit.
See also http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/12/alberto-gonzales-unable-to-find-work/
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Little Wandering Mister: Pshaw
I'll bet you know full well what I'm getting at, yet for the purposes of this thread, we'd do well to let it pass. But rage on if rage you must!
Meanwhile, our rulers are counting on Americans either agreeing with the torture regime or being so distracted with more important things (to them) that they can't be bothered.
The situation isn't unlike that of the Indian Wars back in the day. Americans knew some of what was going on, there were, after all, embedded journalists (from Harpers, no less) documenting much of it -- including the atrocities as they were happening. Some Americans were outspoken against the horrors being inflicted on the tribes, but most didn't care. They had other things to worry about than how some jibbering savages were being treated by our Valiant Forces. Besides, the savages were worse!
By the time of the Wounded Knee massacre, the Valiant Forces had won; peace forever reigned thereafter. Well, in a manner of speaking.
It was accomplished through genocide -- which was known about then, it was not news. By the time Victory in the Indian Wars came, 90% or more of the Native population had been wiped out, and it was confidently predicted by all and sundry that the few survivors would die out sooner rather than later. Those that might somehow survive that die-off could be assimilated, by force if necessary. It was considered the Triumph of Civilization.
Simple.
And that seems to be the direction the Iraq/Iran/Syria/Palestine operations are headed. 4-5 million Iraqis have been displaced so far, half of them driven out of the country; a million, maybe more, have been slaughtered through intercine strife and Coalition military operations, sometimes working in concert (as we saw with the recent failed efforts to exterminate the Sadrists). Who knows how many millions have been wounded in the struggles yet manage to survive? And how many have perished through disease, neglect, malnutrition/starvation, broken hearts?
However many, a fair percentage of the overall population of Iraq has been exterminated, disabled, or driven out in just five years. Keep up the pace, and Iraq will be essentially depopulated in less than a generation.
Victory!
If it works there, it will work anywhere, right?
Wherever resistance arises. Victory!
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John Yoo Should Go
I do believe in academic freedom, and as the son of a college professor, I would normally be in Mr. Yoo's corner. However, I think he has proven that his ability to understand and teach American jurisprudence is deeply flawed. He doesn't comport to any kind of stare decisis established in this country, but rather evokes the kind of legal approach which made the Nazi Fatherland so attractive to Germans of the 1930s.
As a premier law school, UC Berkeley should strive to hire and employ the best law professors, not those whose legal expertise has been called into question in the most fundamental of ways. Just what will they teach the next generation of attorneys?
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Yoo are What Yoo Tolerate....
Excellent discussion today. While I agree with Glenn that focusing on Yoo might ultimately serve the evergreen purpose of absolving his overlords, I'm nonetheless utterly convinced that his understanding of law is so far outside what law means in a nation thereof, that he is unfit to work in the light bulb section of Home Depot, much less teach Constitutional Law (!) at Berkeley. I mentioned in an earlier thread that young minds are, inescapably, being formed under his depraved tutelage, and the damage to both American jurisprudence as well as the reputation of Boalt Hall is unjustifiable under even the most "liberal" definition of academic freedom.
As Jkalos so eloquently put it to a sociopathic troll, eliciting the sound of crickets so loud my head swam, this question goes beyond law, learning, and democracy, cutting to the quick of what it means to be human. Whether or not such claptrap as "24" and the relentless fearmongering of the M$M has deadened many Americans to the plain fact that torture is only practiced by monsters, and acquiescence to such villainous conduct is indicative of terminal moral apathy, I must take that point further to include, emphatically, Edley and the California Board of Regents in that assessment.
The discussions of Nazis here is more than usually relevant in this case, if only because the so-called "intellectuals" of that era were among the first rounded up, and it seems that their modern counterparts are actively trying to avoid that fate, at whatever cost to their legitimacy or place in history.
The fact that Yoo is merely a symptom, not the cause of the disease, should in no way cause him to escape the salutory "treatment" such a symptom requires.
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Yoo should e shunned
By students, colleagues, and institutions.
Who will start the boycott of his classes? This would uphold a grand tradition at Berkely, where students know how to organize!
He should not be fired - let him resign in disgrace.