{"id":8492,"date":"2006-09-18T09:45:14","date_gmt":"2006-09-18T13:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8492.html"},"modified":"2006-09-18T09:45:14","modified_gmt":"2006-09-18T13:45:14","slug":"yoo-spells-it-out-for-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/yoo-spells-it-out-for-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Yoo spells it out for us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone who has followed the administration’s assault on the rule of law is familiar with the work of John Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer and current Berkley law professor. Yesterday, Yoo did all of us a small favor: he put his entire twisted approach to the law in a single New York Times op-ed<\/a>, making it easier for the nation to have a single, handy guide to the bizarre theories that justify the Bush administration’s conduct.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, the critics are right. We’re saying the president is engaged in an audacious power-grab, and Yoo responds by arguing that Bush should<\/i> engage in an audacious power-grab.<\/p>\n

The White House has declared that the Constitution allows the president to sidestep laws that invade his executive authority. That is why Mr. Bush has issued hundreds of signing statements — more than any previous president — reserving his right not to enforce unconstitutional laws.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Consider what Yoo is saying in print here: the president can decide to “sidestep” the law. He can also issue a statement explaining that he’ll ignore laws he believes are wrong.<\/p>\n

And who gets to decide which laws “invade” the president’s executive authority? According to Yoo, the president does.
\n
\nYoo envisions, and successfully urged his former administration colleagues to accept, a presidency without limits. Launching a pre-emptive war against a country that isn’t a threat? No problem. Ignoring existing law to spy on Americans? Sounds good. Detaining suspects without charges and torturing them? A-OK. Terminating old international treaties and blowing off new ones? Just another day at the office.<\/p>\n

As my friend Michael J.W. Stickings put it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

What Yoo has provided is essentially a laundry list of Bush’s abuses of power while in the Oval Office. [For] that I thank him. I’m not sure anyone else has done it so succinctly, or at least so succinctly without even a trace of irony. All this is good<\/i>, according to Yoo…. [H]e makes his case in all seriousness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. This charlatan believes the best way to defend Bush against charges of abuse and lawbreaking is to say abuse and lawbreaking are inherently good. Of course<\/i> Bush is breaking the law, Yoo seems to be saying; he’s the president<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Bush will leave office in January 2009, but I often wonder if the United States will ever be the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who has followed the administration’s assault on the rule of law is familiar with the work of John Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer and current Berkley law professor. Yesterday, Yoo did all of us a small favor: he put his entire twisted approach to the law in a single New York Times op-ed, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}