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t r u t h o u t | John Yoo: UC Berkeley Is a "Magnet for Hippies, Protesters and Left-Wing Activists"
ohn Yoo: UC Berkeley Is a "Magnet for Hippies, Protesters and Left-Wing Activists"
Thursday 12 March 2009
by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
photo
Protesters and police in Berkeley, California. John Yoo, who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) under Bush and wrote several controversial legal memos on torture and executive power, dismissed his critics at UC Berkeley as "hippies, protesters and left-wing activists." (Photo: Jeff Chiu / AP)
John Yoo doesn't have any regrets about the controversial legal opinions he wrote for the White House - many of which were later withdrawn and repudiated - that gave former President George W. Bush unfettered and unchecked power in the aftermath of 9/11.
In a little known interview with the Orange County Register, published March 3, Yoo said he doesn't "think he would have made the basic decisions differently."
However, he said he would have polished the memos up a bit and spent more time on legal research had he known the memos would be released publicly.
"These memos I wrote were not for public consumption," Yoo told the OC Register. "They lack a certain polish, I think - would have been better to explain government policy rather than try to give unvarnished, straight-talk legal advice. I certainly would have done that differently.
"I think the job of a lawyer is to give a straight answer to a client. One thing I sometimes worry about is that lawyers in the future in the government are going to start worrying about, 'What are people going to think of me?' Your client the president, or your client the justice on the Supreme Court, or your client this senator, needs to know what's legal and not legal. And sometimes, what's legal and not legal is not the same thing as what you can do or what you should do."
Perhaps recognizing that his legal work wasn't up to the Department of Justice (DOJ) professional standards, Yoo offered the OC Register an explanation to excuse what one former colleague described as "sloppily reasoned" legal arguments.
"The thing I am really struck with is that when you are in the government, you have very little time to make very important decisions." Yoo told the Register. "You don't have the luxury to research every single thing and that's accelerated in war time. You really have decisions to make, which you could spend years on. Sometimes what we forget as private citizens, or scholars, or students or journalists for sure (he laughs), is that in hindsight, it's easier to say, 'Here's what I would have done.' But when you're in the government, at the time you make the decision, you don't have that kind of luxury."
Yoo is the author of one of the most infamous legal memos to ever come out of the DOJ: an August 2002 legal opinion widely referred to as the "torture memo," which gave the Bush administration the legal justification to subject terrorist detainees to harsh interrogations, such as the drowning technique known as waterboarding, in violation of the Geneva Conventions and international and domestic laws against torture.
But Yoo told the OC Register that the "tradeoff" against using brutal interrogation methods means "we will get less information about the enemy."
"Someone can say, 'I think it's more important that other countries have a more favorable opinion of us than any intelligence we gain from interrogation.' That's a benefit and a cost..." Yoo said.
On March 2, the DOJ released a handful of legal memos Yoo wrote as the deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), a powerful agency that advises the president on the extent of his powers under the Constitution.
Yoo, who is a visiting law professor at Chapman University in Orange, California, asserted that the president had unlimited powers to prosecute the "war on terror" on American soil and could ignore constitutional rights, including First Amendment freedoms of speech and the press and Fourth Amendment requirements for search warrants.
In perhaps the most controversial of the memos, dated October 23, 2001, and entitled "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States," Yoo said Bush's war powers allowed him to put restrictions on freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
"First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," Yoo wrote. "The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically."
Just three months before Bush exited the White House, Stephen Bradbury, as acting chief of the OLC, renounced the October 23, 2001, legal opinion in a "memorandum for the files" that called Yoo's opinion about suspending First Amendment protections as "unnecessary" and "overbroad and general and not sufficiently grounded in the particular circumstance of a concrete scenario."
In an October 6, 2008, memo, Bradbury wrote that Yoo's legal opinion "states several specific propositions that are either incorrect or highly questionable." But Bradbury attempted to justify or forgive Yoo's controversial opinion by explaining that it was "the product of an extraordinary period in the history of the Nation: the immediate aftermath of the attacks of 9/11."
The October 23, 2001, "memorandum represents a departure, although perhaps for understandable reasons, from the preferred practice of OLC to render formal opinions only with respect to specific and concrete policy proposals and not to undertake a general survey of a broad area of the law or to address general or amorphous hypothetical scenarios that implicate difficult questions of law," Bradbury wrote.
The Register did not question Yoo about those memos, presumably because the interview took place prior to the DOJ's release of the legal opinions.
Yoo's legal work during Bush's first term in office has been roundly criticized by dozens of the nation's leading legal scholars.
Dawn Johnsen, who has been tapped by President Barack Obama to head the OLC, has publicly criticized the work of Yoo and other OLC officials under Bush. In a 2006 Indiana Law Journal article, she said the function of the OLC should be to "provide an accurate and honest appraisal of applicable law, even if that advice will constrain the administration's pursuit of desired policies."
Johnsen, who is a staunch supporter of releasing OLC memos publicly, said Yoo conducted his work as an advocate of Bush administration policy.
"The advocacy model of lawyering, in which lawyers craft merely plausible legal arguments to support their clients' desired actions, inadequately promotes the president's constitutional obligation to ensure the legality of executive action," said Johnsen, who served in the OLC under President Bill Clinton.
In fact, a DOJ watchdog appears to share that view.
An investigation by H. Marshall Jarrett, head of the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), reached "damning" conclusions about numerous cases of "misconduct" in the advice from John Yoo and other lawyers in the OLC during the Bush administration, according to legal sources familiar with the report's contents.
"I wish they weren't doing it, but I understand why they are," Yoo told the OC Register in response to a question about Jarrett's probe. "It is something one would expect. You have to make these kinds of decisions in an unprecedented kind of war with legal questions we've never had to think about before. We didn't seek out those questions. 9/11 kind of thrust them on us. No matter what you do, there's going to be a lot of people who are upset with your decision. If Bush had done nothing, there would be a lot of people upset with his decision, too. I understood that while we were doing it, there were going to be people who were critical. I can't go farther into it, because it's still going on right now. I'm not trying to escape responsibility for my decisions. I have to wait and see what they say."
The OPR report was completed late last year, but was kept under wraps by Attorney General Michael Mukasey while Bush finished out his days in office, the sources said.
According to people familiar with the OPR report, Yoo was briefed on the report in January. Yoo is said to have informed officials at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is a tenured law professor, according to two senior law school officials. He took a leave of absence in January to teach foreign relations law at Chapman.
While teaching at Berkeley, he was routinely the subject of protests by students and faculty.
Last month, Brad DeLong, a UC Berkeley economics professor, wrote a letter to Robert Birgenau, Berkeley's Chancellor, calling for Yoo to be fired.
"Out of a concern for justice, a concern for humanity, and a concern for our reputation as a university, to dismiss Professor John Yoo from membership in our university," says DeLong's February 16 letter.
Yoo said he's not surprised at the reception he received at Berkeley.
"Berkeley is sort of a magnet for hippies, protesters and left-wing activists," Yoo said. "So I'm not surprised that being one of the few recognizable conservatives on campus that I would generate a lot of heat and friction. It happened well before working in the Bush administration."
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Jason Leopold is editor in chief of The Public Record, www.pubrecord.org.
Comments
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How much tax payer money
Thu, 03/19/2009 - 15:23 — granny (not verified)
How much tax payer money goes to pay this fool's salary? (Of, if he's at Chapman, what's his salary there?) And what is wrong with UC-Berkeley, or Chapman, allowing him to continue in the classroom? Remember what happened to Ward Churchill when he made remarks about US actions helping to bring on 9/11? HE didn't create the conditions under which the US broke international law, subverted its own values, and tortured prisoners until they gave confessions of questionaable usefulness. But OH, how the right wingers howled about him. John Yoo is not only a disgrace to higher education and the profession of law, he is a danger and a menace to future lawyers, as well as a sniveling Yes-Man who gave Bush and Cheney the advice they told him they wanted.
John Yoo should be required
Thu, 03/19/2009 - 01:00 — Anonymous (not verified)
John Yoo should be required to take a few years of ethics, philosophy, and literature courses.
Yale is a magnet for neo-con
Wed, 03/18/2009 - 22:54 — ZeeBruce (not verified)
Yale is a magnet for neo-con neoliberal terrorists who would subvert the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and engage in illegal wars to promote the economic interests of energy companies. The "skull and bones" society at its heart is aptly named as its graduates are leading proponents of skullduggery, state exported terrorism, and the rape of people and destruction of entire cultures. Yale in terms of people influenced (by lost jobs, lost savings, lost lives) is head and shoulder above the puny progressives at Berkeley.
"Unprecedented kind of
Wed, 03/18/2009 - 17:21 — Floresta (not verified)
"Unprecedented kind of war?", uh huh, yup, the fake kind that once exposed to the light of day proves immeasurably false, trumped up and lead to a dizzying grab for presidential power. Mr Yoo's excuse is profoundly disturbing. Perhaps he has a brilliant mind, but I get no sense of a heart beating at all.
I urge all of
Mon, 03/16/2009 - 18:11 — Anonymous (not verified)
I urge all of us---particularly all California citizens---to contact the University of California Law School and ask them to dismiss John Yoo for war criminal related activities.
Magnet for Hippies,
Mon, 03/16/2009 - 17:34 — radline9 (not verified)
Magnet for Hippies, Protestors, and Left Wing Activists? I wish I had gone to school there.
All of which ignores the
Sun, 03/15/2009 - 16:06 — Anonymous (not verified)
All of which ignores the pragmatic question of how reliable any confession is when extracted by torture.
A professor who enables
Sat, 03/14/2009 - 07:51 — bl8ant (not verified)
A professor who enables government torture has no place teaching in a university of any kind in the united states. Mr. Yoo has made himself a pariah in his own profession--not just among the "hippies" at UCBerkeley. His enabling of the Bush Administration's torture flies in the face not only of US constitutional law and our international agreements (the Geneva Conventions, in particular), but of generations of US oppsition to human rights violations around the world--notably those of the Nazis (we were the chief architects of the Nuremburg Trials), the Soviet Union and communist China. Not only does Yoo not deserve the honor of a university position, he very likely deserves prosecution as a war criminal. In what way are his actions any less reprehensible than those lawyers and judges who enabled Hitler's regime... and were prosecuted and convicted for them at Nuremburg? University professor indeed--shame on UC Berkeley for harboring this man. THIS IS QUOTED FROM ANOTHER POSTER..S SHERIDAN TRUER WORDS NEVER SPOKEN!!!
"The main problem is that
Sat, 03/14/2009 - 04:41 — jahf (not verified)
"The main problem is that Yoo never understood who his client was. As a lawyer in the DOJ, and especially in the OLC, Yoo should have been the peoples' lawyer, not the president's ... Yoo failed his clients miserably." On the contrary, he understood perfectly who his client was, and has been amply rewarded for it. If a majority truly opposed torture, Yoo would have hanged long ago. Torture became policy because it was unopposed by a citizenry wholly uninterested in human rights, one that openly celebrated the lies that let them bay for innocent blood.
3 cheers for Berkeley
Sat, 03/14/2009 - 02:39 — gcammaro (not verified)
3 cheers for Berkeley residents and UC students who made life uncomfortable enough for John Yoo that he would seek relative safety in the conservative confines of Chapman University. And woe to Dean Edley and the UC system that have provided safe haven to a known war criminal and granted him free access to the developing minds of our youth. See www.FireJohnYoo.org for thorough and revealing analyses of Yoo's role in providing the legal framework for the truly shameful and destructive policies that continue to grip our nation.
totally shocked that U. of
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 20:10 — Anonymous (not verified)
totally shocked that U. of C. has allowed this traitor to teach law at one our great universities. He should be in prison.
John Yoo has chosen to
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 18:22 — Skeeter Sanders (not verified)
John Yoo has chosen to totally ignore the supremacy of the Constitution of the United States, which every public officeholder is sworn by their oath of office to "support and defend" -- and in the case of the president, "preserve, protect and defend.' Article VI of the Constitution makes it very clear that it is the "the supreme law of the land." For Yoo to assert that the president has the power to ignore the Constitution in his pursuit of the "war on terror" reveals a not just a shocking ignorance of the Constitution's Supremacy Clause, but, I dare say, an utter contempt of our nation's highest law. Yoo is a disgrace to the legal profession.
torture works, as
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 17:00 — baldeagle (not verified)
torture works, as demonstrated by keifer sutherland on the hit show 24. yoo is a super patriot, as demonstrated by his dedication to our former ceo. all you naysayers hate america, as demonstrated by your unwillingness to allow the military's hard sell on your young people. it's so obvious that you hate america! now if you please, i have to get back to watching qvc as there are only 5 minutes left to get that diamond-encrusted toilet seat i have been needing.
Us protesters, hippies, and
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 15:42 — Anonymous (not verified)
Us protesters, hippies, and left-wing radicals recognize that torture is wrong as is the use of the existence of 'terrorism' to eliminate that pesky First Amendment. We may also safely assume that Mr. Yoo himself has never been tortured. Just as people who have actually been in combat make up some of the most zealous anti-war activists, it is easy for the chicken hawks to advocate violence and torture from the safe havens of their living rooms. Strange that a right wing thug such as Yoo would end up at Berkeley. The torture memos and his contempt for American values were not secrets; why did they hire him in the first place?
Yoo sets terrorists free, by
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 14:22 — Sue Jones (not verified)
Yoo sets terrorists free, by his illegal actions. Once a prisoner has been tortured, the authorities have only two choices. Keep them in the Gulag forever and throw away the key (illegally according to US and international law.) Or let them go. The option of trying them in a court of law is effectively gone once illegal data has been obtained by torture. Also the terrorists defense team can claim (truly) that the prosecutors are trying to cover up their own crimes of torture by making false claims about the prisoner. (As they do.) Torture poisons real prosecution. Just as torture poisons real investigation-- tortured prisoners give false information because it gives them the power to have their enemies tortured by implicating them. Yoo should be fired and prosecuted, and in large part because he has prevented the real investigation and prosecution of terrorists. The people who hired Yoo at Berkeley and Chapman also need to have their heads examined. Tenure does not protect war criminals.
a perfect and disgusting
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 08:25 — bl8ant (not verified)
a perfect and disgusting representation of where America has allowed it's politicians to take it....somehow the financial crisis seems like appropriate karma
Perhaps President Obama can
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 06:55 — Anonymous (not verified)
Perhaps President Obama can use his unfettered unitary executive powers to put Yoo under 24/365 surveillance and make him check in like a sex offender every 5 days at a local police station, or perhaps send him to one of Bush's extraordinary vacation spots, then try him in a court after 10 or 11 years. He is after all, an enemy of freedom and democracy, a war criminal, and a principal cause of creating a terrorist mindset in the people who he authorized to be tortured.
Yoo at UC Berkeley: Either
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 06:36 — Anonymous (not verified)
Yoo at UC Berkeley: Either a sad testament to the myth of academic quality of Boalt Hall ... or the luck of John Yoo in securing a respected position before exposing his below-average critical-thinking skills as a legal scholar --let alone any talent as a practicing lawyer. Ideology isn't the issue - there are conservative, even controversial, scholars. Alito, Edwards are examples familiar to most people. Berkeley has to be thrilled to send Yoo off to Chapman, who likely are thrilled to get a "celebrity" visiting faculty member. Now, if the legitimate faculty at Berkeley could just figure out how to get rid of the cancer . . . .
What is it about George Bush
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 05:17 — Anonymous (not verified)
What is it about George Bush that makes smart people do dumb things? Yoo's only chance for redemption is to turn state's witness.
As time passes, Mr. Yoo will
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 04:25 — Michael (not verified)
As time passes, Mr. Yoo will find that those "hippies, protesters and left-wing activists" have the power to make his life truly miserable. I'm really looking forward to it.
Let's say John Yoo was
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 02:30 — MP Peacenik (not verified)
Let's say John Yoo was traveling in a "neutral" foreign country and the immigration officials there found a copy of his torture memo on him. The government police then "detains" Yoo-without ever notifying the U.S. gov't or any of his family members--in order to find further links of Mr. Yoo to a "terrorist organization" such as the USA bushed regime. And in order to get better info, they decide to perform some "enhanced interrogation techniques" on Yoo, but just short of "organ failure"! At that point I wonder if Yoo's family members would still debate whether Yoo had been tortured by the said state police? Maybe they would agree that getting critical info on Yoo's possible "terrorist links" would justify his secret incarceration, and letting Yoo rot in a "black site" prison was worth the risk of "protecting the safety of the American people"!
Woo is a complete perfect
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 02:09 — Anonymous (not verified)
Woo is a complete perfect idiot. He rationalizes his poor judgement and unconstitutional decisons and thinks he is off free. He should be jailed for his violations of the American Constitution. Please President Obama don't worry about reconsiliation with the Bugh thugs
Patrick Leahy has the right
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 01:03 — Anonymous (not verified)
Patrick Leahy has the right idea: Hold all Bush administration players accountable for violations of the Constitution! That most certainly includes John Loo
John Yoo needs some tutoring
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 00:56 — Otto Schiff (not verified)
John Yoo needs some tutoring in the meaning of the constitution. In wartime the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces, not of the USA. Also the constitution does not cover (or sanction) illegal invasions of foreign countries. I believe it behooves the University of California to fire or straighten out this misguided professor.
The main problem is that Yoo
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 00:41 — Anonymous (not verified)
The main problem is that Yoo never understood who his client was. As a lawyer in the DOJ, and especially in the OLC, Yoo should have been the peoples' lawyer, not the president's. The office of White House Counsel exists to represent the Office of Presidency and the President's Personal Councel represents the individual holding the office of President. It is the job of the OLC to protect the American people from illegal actions, especially those of other governmental agencies, departments and branches, by clearly defining the state of the law at a given time. It is most definitely NOT the job of the OLC to rationalize the desired policies of those other branches, departments or agencies. Yoo failed his clients miserably.
Every person who knowingly
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 00:37 — Anonymous (not verified)
Every person who knowingly commits a crime "thinks" it should be done in spite of, and regardless of, the spirit or letter of the law. Yoo is little better than any all too common violent criminal. The only difference is that Yoo made other men torture other humans for the benefit of Yoo and "his" President's Putsch. Criminal means leading to legal ends? You do the math. Holder should prosecute to the full extent of the letter of the law. Yoo belongs in a prison for his actions, not providing an evident of rampant lawlessness in a University classroom.
Yoo should be disbarred if
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 00:35 — Anonymous (not verified)
Yoo should be disbarred if not imprisoned with those that followed his memos. Maybe he has been influenced by his Chinese Communist heritage. He certainly seems not to know that in the United States we follow the laws prescribed by the Constitution of the United States. He certainly shouldn't be allowed to teach law either as I'm afraid as to what he putting into those new lawyers heads. Anytime I'm in a room with young people and the subject of the Bush administration comes up, I take a piece of paper and a pen and I write "JOHN YOO" then I say " remember this name, he may be around for a long time and he is a threat to your life, liberty and your pursuit of happiness."
Hippies and left wingers?
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 00:23 — Americonned (not verified)
Hippies and left wingers? What other Americans would Yoo write off? Was he in charge of the voting machines?
It boggles the mind that
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 00:11 — Jen (not verified)
It boggles the mind that this guy- an immigrant to this country- has the cojones to screw up OUR Constitution, after running here from Seoul. But then I suppose "rich man's sycophant" is the new treason.
Have we gone mad culturally?
Fri, 03/13/2009 - 00:06 — Anonymous (not verified)
Have we gone mad culturally? Are we the new Nazi's? PROSECUTION is a must!
"Berkeley is sort of a
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 23:46 — L**2 (not verified)
"Berkeley is sort of a magnet for hippies, protesters and left-wing activists," Yoo said. It also seems to be a magnet for right-wing extremists.
What a bunch of lame excuses
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 23:44 — LizzardAnn (not verified)
What a bunch of lame excuses he has made! If upholding the constitution doesn't warrant a request for more time, if needed....I am not sure what would! 9/11 was beyond horrible, but we are certainly not the only nation on the globe to have been attacked by terrorists....and we haven't seen countries with equal or even fewer freedoms than we have, poised to strip basic rights from citizens. And we are the leaders of the free world! I'm confused as to who they thought the bad guys were. I think Yoo suffered from over reaction, or working as a yes man. Either way, he is a disgrace to the legal profession and I am appalled that a respected institution like UC Berkeley has him on staff.
If Yoo has no regrets, Atty.
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 23:42 — Jackie Giles (not verified)
If Yoo has no regrets, Atty. Gen. Holder needs to give him some!
I am amazed that he is
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 23:04 — michal54 (not verified)
I am amazed that he is teaching (of all things) foreign relations law at Chapman. Go figger. What serious law student would sign up for his class knowing that... " In an October 6, 2008, memo, Bradbury wrote that Yoo's legal opinion "states several specific propositions that are either incorrect or highly questionable." "
I would like to know: 1.
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 23:02 — Anonymous (not verified)
I would like to know: 1. Who do I contact to add my voice to people who are calling for Yoo's ouster? (The National Lawyers' Guild doesn't appear to have a link on their home page, even though when I called Marjorie Cohn's office her secretary referred me to the NLG.) 2. Who are the people in positions of power at Boalt and UC Berkeley who are protecting/defending Yoo? It would be appropriate to call for them to be fired as well. At the v-e-r-y least, they should be persuaded not to allow Yoo to teach Constitutional law. Intellectually, the man is NOT FIT to teach the course if he can justify waterboarding as not being torture. (See below.) 3. Does anybody know if students at Boalt have an organized lobby against Yoo? Is there a group of students that reaches out to classmates, provides them with info, and asks them not to take Yoo's classes? 4. If Yoo had any involvement with the extra-legal -- and totally creepy and scary -- entity called the "Joint Special Operations Command" (JSOC) that Seymour Hersh spoke about at the University of Minnesota recently (http://www.truthout.org/031209J). As stated by Hersh, JSOC is a wholly independent wing of the special operations community that does not report to a-n-y-b-o-d-y; not to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or to the Secretary of Defense. During the Bush Administration, however, it reported **directly** to the Executive Branch. Oh, but not George Bush. Richard Cheney. Boy, talk about anti-American!
SHAME ON YOO, MAN. Pity the
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 22:14 — H. CANTANHEDE, JNR. (not verified)
SHAME ON YOO, MAN. Pity the the Yoos have won the battle against flower power and the hippies and in the process have thrashed each and every stone of the humanitarian country the US might have been one day. Instead it became a monster machine to wage war on every corner of the planet, and aid other similar assassination machines - and rings - which is bad for the human race. Let us all hope this person and his gang mates are duly prosecuted, or the cycle will be repeated with dire consequences.
Brainwashing. How would it
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 22:06 — Anonymous (not verified)
Brainwashing. How would it change your thinking if you suppose that the aims of torture "gaining" information were specious and backwards?? What if torture is more about erasing information, aka Brainwashing. After 911, what would be the need for that?
Yoo is being investigated,
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 22:05 — NYCartist (not verified)
Yoo is being investigated, according to Michael Ratner, Pres. of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Marjorie Cohn (Pres. of the National Lawyers Guild) has suggested his decisions should have him disbarred. The Nuremberg Trials already established that lawyers giving illegal advice go to prison. "Hippies" indeed. What a time warp idea. "Polish" is not what's missing from his memos, but legality.
John Yoo is proof of the
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 21:50 — Anonymous (not verified)
John Yoo is proof of the proposition that educational pedigree is no assurance of wisdom or virtue. Stripped of his Ivy-League camouflage, this guy is just another unexceptional hack. This assessment is reasonably applied irrespective of conservative or liberal ideology ... no self-respecting fascist should want to claim Yoo among their intelligentsia, either. His memos "... lack[ed] a certain polish ..." because he gave "... unvarnished, straight-talk legal advice." Really? Please. He presumably had time for intelligent reflection in writing "War by Other Means," which is devoid of any such evidence. His research and writing are third-rate ... at best. (An apology to third-rate academics who are otherwise honest.)
The seed of tyranny is the
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 21:44 — Anonymous (not verified)
The seed of tyranny is the only thing Yoo really conserves. Torture, whatever the rationale is the ultimate corruption of power.
I am ambivalent about John
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 21:40 — Anonymous (not verified)
I am ambivalent about John Yoo. I couldn't disagree with him more, but I think we should have learned our lesson from the Bush admin. We cannot cut out others because they think differently, the opposite even. However, I think that his mindset is clear...don't write something that you believe if someone is going to read it; do a better job of disguising it. I somehow never occurs to him that he should have done a better job and one that aligned itself with the law, not the people for whom he was trying to find a rationalization for torture. And that's all it was. How the heck he got tenure at Berkeley still baffles me. I don't mind conservatives on the faculty, but weak-minded nutcases...well, yes.
Hey, UC Berkeley,can the
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 21:30 — dr wu--I'm just an ordinary guy. (not verified)
Hey, UC Berkeley,can the man. You have enough crazies running around! Let him teach at Chapman or Mengele law school. But UC Berkeley? Just as George Bush cheapened Harvard when they gave hm an MBA, Yoo makes Berkeley look like a horse's ass.
The saddest thing I see here
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 21:26 — Americonned (not verified)
The saddest thing I see here is this. Students are still signing up to this twit. Boo to You Woo, You Don't Have the Guts to Throw a Shoe, Do You Woo? Don't we have a law against trashing the Constitution? Isn't that treason and punishable? Why are these people still protected? Does everybody have a secret desire to be imperialists? I will go to my grave in deep shame for my country if the entire past eight years aren't prosecuted. And I don't need any spin doctor excuses such as "we have to make sure it doesn't happen again". Rest assured, it will. Just like Viet Nam did these days. The Bush administration broke several big laws and should be vigorously investigated and prosecuted just for that. Each and every contributor!
DUDE! Who's the magnet?
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 21:05 — peter white (not verified)
DUDE! Who's the magnet?
One thing we have learned
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 20:39 — Anonymous (not verified)
One thing we have learned from clinical psychology is humans can justify almost any behavior. Yoo has demonstrated once again that this is true.
If Yoo is licensed to
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 20:24 — David Weed (not verified)
If Yoo is licensed to practice law anywhere, he should be disciplined for his behavior. Like the president, employees of the Department of Justice take an oath to uphold the Constitution and the law. Yoo's legal opinions urged and sanctioned the violation of the Constitution and the law by the highest executive power in the US. His advice served as the basis for illegal activity, and he should pay for this like any other incompetent lawyer and co-conspirator. Obviously his "opinions" were intended to support illegal activity, and while he may have been just an adviser he knew what he was helping to advance.
Planning torture is a war
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 20:19 — Anonymous (not verified)
Planning torture is a war crime. It is a crime punishable by the death penalty according to the Convention Against Torture when it has resulted in the death of someone in detention. This is also federal law according to the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Yoo is criminal, not only an accessory to murder but the enabler of degeneracy, and the horror of war crimes. Let him be arrogant facing trial behind bars. Let the punishment fit the crimes.
"The thing I am really
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 19:56 — Claire F (not verified)
"The thing I am really struck with is that when you are in the government, you have very little time to make very important decisions." Yoo told the Register. This is a very disingenuous argument made by someone who percieves government as they want the world to be - less government. As an IRS employee for 20 years I took (and was given) the time to research issues correctly, sometimes to the government's favor, sometimes to the taxpayer's. In government, as in business, the ethics and attitude of the employees & the organization are directly related to those of highest level management. We get the government we vote for.
Yoo didn't authorize
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 19:51 — Paul Fako (not verified)
Yoo didn't authorize anything. He merely wrote opinions that were adherent to the people he was trying to kiss it up with, namely, the Administration. For every left winger there should be a right winer balance. He is one of those. Should he be prosecuted. For writing something. I think not. they who took this as gospel because it "appeared to sanction later actions" are the guilty and we should stop passing it off on Yoo and his ilk. I don't like him but I am a liberal at heart and shouldn't, right. I do like that he is staunch in his beliefs and stand behind his word, as I do mine and takes the world head on regardless. And, I demand the right to say any liberal thing I want about anyone, just like Yoo and Limbaugh and the other conservative loudmouths are doing. Go for it Rachel and Keith and Chris.=
John Yoo is lucky he wasn't
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 19:46 — Anonymous (not verified)
John Yoo is lucky he wasn't at Berkeley during the activist period in the 1960s. Tenure or not, he would have been run out of town. Listen, if the entire town got shut down over the issue of an acre or two of empty lot (People's Park), imagine what that student body and community activists would have done to this knucklehead. The students there should realize that in this economic market, that their 4.0 GPAs aren't going to buy them much of anything come graduation and start doing things with their time to rectify the conditions that make their futures so bleak looking. Finally, isn't it a coincidence that John Yoo has now left Berkeley to teach at Chapman in Orange County? At some point he will have to pay the piper.
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