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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Interesting write up on job duties and recent history:
http://tinyurl.com/a42c5f
The Office of Legal Counsel is, in effect, the general counsel for the Attorney General and the Justice Department. It also serves, in effect, as outside counsel to the President, the White House and other executive branch agencies, providing authoritative advice on the Constitution and other weighty legal matters.
Douglas W. Kmiec, legal scholar, once told The New York Times,
"We used to call it the conscience of the Justice Department."
Whether that conscience worked as it should during the Bush administration's war on terror is a question that historians will debate. The office's reputation suffered badly as critics on Capitol Hill and elsewhere questioned whether its advice contravened the Geneva Conventions and condoned the torture of terror suspects captured in the war on terror, and as the Supreme Court dealt setbacks to the Bush administration's reading of the law.
Regarding changing prior OLC rulings:
"Jack Goldsmith held the job of assistant attorney general only briefly in 2003-2004 before departing to become a professor at Harvard Law School...For nine months, from October 2003 to June 2004, (Goldsmith) had been the central figure in a secret but intense rebellion of a small coterie of Bush administration lawyers," Newsweek wrote. It said that Goldsmith took the position that the Fourth Geneva Convention barring physical or moral coercion on prisoners of war applied to even to those suspected of belonging to al Qaeda...
Goldsmith told Newsweek that he realized soon after taking the job that the torture memo could not stand, but that it would be difficult to change. According to Goldsmith, "The Office of Legal Counsel rarely overturns its prior opinions, and even more rarely does so within an administration, and even more rarely than that, in the same administration about something this important. I didn't find any precedent for it."
List of recent position profiles only goes back to 2000.
Mr Obama, aware of the criticism he has faced as a result of his moderate appointments, has tossed a bone to the far left. But it does not promise to have much meat on it.
Most importantly, now that he is the Executive, do you think Mr Obama is going to do much to weaken the executive power Mr Bush exercised? No doubt he can think of many good reasons to continue to have a strong executive Branch.
So while his new appointee may believe in restrictions on executive power, it seems unlikely that they will have an impact on the Obama administration.
So while his new appointee may believe in restrictions on executive power, it seems unlikely that they will have an impact on the Obama administration.-- ehillesum
Try going back into the thread. It's only a few pages long at this point. Your uneducated opinion, as shown in your comment, has been addressed.
"We used to call it the conscience of the Justice Department."
Under Bush II it was reassigned from Superego to Id.
Whoa--didn't see that coming...
That is a surprising choice. A quick glance at his record shows nothing tying him at all to intelligence expertise. But as Clinton's chief of staff, he would have had several years of intelligence experience at the highest level.
Technically, will the Bush era legal memos and opinions issued out of the current OLC carry over to an Obama administration? Meaning, will President Obama be bound (or unbound) by John Yoo's opinions or other Bush-era OLC opinions? Or will Johnsen have the chance --or obligation based on her job description--to dismantle those opinions? And if so will it be chance or obligation? (I'm not talking moral obligation)
While I rarely provide useful information, from a few posts above yours:
"According to Goldsmith, "The Office of Legal Counsel rarely overturns its prior opinions, and even more rarely does so within an administration, and even more rarely than that, in the same administration about something this important. I didn't find any precedent for it"
Thanks for that link.
Andrew Sullivan recently said he thinks you have "...less fear than any journalist I know in Washington." He said this right after your post yesterday about Israel and Gaza (which he appears to agree with.)
Which makes me curious. Have there been any personal or professional repercussions for what you've written, aside from bigoted rants?
And do you have any thoughts on being lauded for your bravery? Or thoughts on the woman who accuses you of blood libel (also mentioned by Sullivan)
I think you do a really good job at getting at the heart of issues and persisting there. As ugly as your comments section gets, there is also a really vibrant discussion which adds a great dimension to the discussion and lends you more credibility. It's one of my biggest problems with other bloggers, like Sullivan, who refuse a public comments section.
This veritable waterwall of verbiage of yours is 157 words long and sadly only contains one full stop throughout its entire length.
"Beyond these articles, I don't know all that much about her, but anyone who can write this, in this unapologetic, euphemism-free and even impolitic tone, warning that the problem isn't merely John Yoo but Bush himself, repeatedly demanding "outrage," criticizing the Democratic Congress for legalizing Bush's surveillance program, arguing that we cannot merely "move on" if we are to restore our national honor, stating the OLC's "core job description" is to "say 'no' to the President," all while emphasizing that the danger is unchecked power not just for the Bush administration but "for years and administrations to come" -- and to do so in the middle of an election year when she knows she has a good chance to be appointed to a high-level position if the Democratic candidate won and yet nonetheless eschewed standard, obfuscating Beltway politesse about these matters -- is someone whose appointment to such an important post is almost certainly a positive sign.
A lady once said that life was to short to stuff mushrooms. If you find that life is to short to sub edit I have a suggestion.
Why not stand ten yards away from the computer screen and fire a cartridge of light bird shot at your text? That should do the trick and meet with the approval of Shirley Conran the author of Superwoman.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
