John Yoo's Falsehoods
(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)
Back to the stage returns the utterly discredited John Yoo as he pens one of the most audaciously mendacious columns seen on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times this side of David Brooks. The man is truly shameless:
Thus the administration has gone to war to pre-empt foreign threats. It has data-mined communications in the United States to root out terrorism. It has detained terrorists without formal charges, interrogating some harshly. And it has formed military tribunals modeled on those of past wars, as when we tried and executed a group of Nazi saboteurs found in the United States.
The Administration has gone to war? Not even the Administration claims this. They rely on the Authorization to Use Force enacted by the Congress in September 2001. Harsh interrogation? Say the word Yoo. Torture. John Yoo is simply incorrigible. In a just world, he would be hooted off the stage of public affairs. In today's BushWorld, he writes Op-Eds in the New York Times. The man is a sick joke. More on the flip.
In Hamdi v Rumsfeld, the Court wrote:
[The Government's position] cannot be mandated by any reasonable view of the separation of powers, as this view only serves to condense power into a single branch of government. We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens. Youngstown Steel and Tube, 343 U.S. at 587. Whatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in times of conflict with other Nations or enemy organizations, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake.
But John Yoo does not care what that Supreme Court says. He writes:
To his critics, Mr. Bush is a "King George" bent on an "imperial presidency." But the inescapable fact is that war shifts power to the branch most responsible for its waging: the executive. Harry Truman sent troops to fight in Korea without Congressional authority. George H. W. Bush did not have the consent of Congress when he invaded Panama to apprehend Manuel Noriega. Nor did Bill Clinton when he initiated NATO's air war over Kosovo.
Ah Kosovo. And what did John Yoo say about Kosovo?
President Clinton exercised the powers of the imperial presidency to the utmost in the area in which those powers are already at their height -- in our dealings with foreign nations. Unfortunately, the record of the administration has not been a happy one, in light of its costs to the Constitution and the American legal system. On a series of different international relations matters, such as war, international institutions, and treaties, President Clinton has accelerated the disturbing trends in foreign policy that undermine notions of democratic accountability and respect for the rule of law.
The man is not only an extremist, he is a charlatan. That he remains on the public stage is an indictment on our society.
As for the rest of Yoo's argument, I leave that to the rest of you. His disrespect for facts, law and the Constitution make him someone I will never engage. He is simply despicable and a blot on any institution that associates itself with him.
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