Architect Of Eavesdropping and Torture Policies Unrepentant

The bogeyman of civil libertarians, John Yoo, stands by his legal advise to the Bush administration approving extra-legal eavesdropping and torture.

The Washington Post interviews Yoo at his office at Boalt Hall, Berkeley, where he is a tenured professor of Law.

This dipshit is actually honored to be called "the Robert Bork of my generation." It gets worse:

"The worst thing you could do, now that people are critical of your views, is to run and hide. I agree with the work I did. I have an obligation to explain it," Yoo said from his Berkeley office. "I'm one of the few people who is willing to defend decisions I made in government."

The other is George W. Bush. A really choice crowd.

The article explains how Yoo, who has never even met Bush or Cheney, maneuvered himself via the conservative legal group the Federalist Society into a position of power. His luck (and the bad fortune of America) was due to a fluke of history:

Despite his resume and connections, Yoo required a particular convergence for his views to become as influential as they did. He needed a well-placed position, a national crisis and a receptive audience. He quickly got all three.

Known for his belief in a strong presidency, he joined the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the attorney general and the White House, in July 2001. Two months later came the terrorist attacks and the rush to respond. Soon, Yoo found his audience in the highest echelons of the White House, where the president and vice president already tended to see the courts, Congress and international conventions as constraints on the conduct of foreign affairs and national security.

This tool took the ball and ran with it:

Two weeks after Sept. 11, Yoo said in a memo for the White House that the Constitution conferred "plenary," or absolute, authority to use force abroad, "especially in response to grave national emergencies created by sudden, unforeseen attacks on the people and territory of the United States."

Other experts disagree:

The majority view among constitutional scholars holds that the Framers purposely imposed checks on the executive branch, even in wartime, not least in reaction to the rule of Britain's King George III. On such issues, Yoo's critics contend, he went too far. "It's largely a misreading of original intent," Cole said. "The Framers, above all, were concerned about a strong executive."

(...)

Elisa Massimino, Washington director of Human Rights First, is among those who say Yoo deserves considerable blame. "The issues which have most disturbed Americans about the conduct of the executive branch in fighting terrorism can ultimately be traced to legal theories that he espoused," she said.

Yoo's legal opinion set the stage for the administration's abuse of power. Every criticism against these policies is greeted by the refrain, "we are on solid legal ground."

So is every criminal who has the means to hire a high priced lawyer. This does not assure an automatic victory when the case gets to court. Legal opinions come in many flavors, styles and qualities. The Bush administration is hoping that the American citizens will listen to their apologists and be stupid enough to believe that the issue is cut and dried.

Here's my opinion, the issue is cut and dried, the Bush administration has been breaking laws while conducting their "war on terror."