Bloodless Coup: Yet More Proof That John Yoo Doesn't Belong in Positions of Power, and Probably Shouldn't Be in the Classroom

October 20, 2006

Yet More Proof That John Yoo Doesn't Belong in Positions of Power, and Probably Shouldn't Be in the Classroom

Moron - mean-spirited, presumptuous and nasty too, but the key problem of course is that he seems to lack the slightest (accurate) understanding of one of the most important Supreme Court rulings in years.

Posted by armand at October 20, 2006 09:48 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Law and the Courts

Comments

Yoo's article was one of the dumbest things I've read recently (and I just graded a bunch of tests). How did he get employed? No, wait: I know that one - ideology. How did he get a Law School job? Aren't there any quality standards?

Posted by: baltar at October 20, 2006 10:42 AM | PERMALINK

i'll give yoo credit for one apt observation:

Hamdan was an unprecedented attempt by the court to rewrite the law of war and intrude into war policy. The court must have thought its stunning power grab would go unchallenged. After all, it has gotten away with many broad assertions of judicial authority before. This has been because Congress is unwilling to take a clear position on controversial issues (like abortion, religion or race) and instead passes ambiguous laws which breed litigation and leave the power to decide to the federal courts.

Of course, the corrolary to that, which Yoo would never advance and is admittedly off-point to this thread, is that this trend -- very real, really quite indisputable, and perhaps most evident in Congress's unwillingness to just declare an old-fashioned war -- is one of many reasons (and the one perhaps most neglected in discussions on topic) why any congressperson who bitches about judicial activism of any stripe should have "bullshit" called on him so fast the "ism" is drowned out. Congress punts to the courts; the courts make the hard decisions Congress can't be bothered to do; Congress takes the decision as evidence of a judiciary run amok; newspapers print it; pundits rail; asshat legislators propose all sorts of (suddenly precise) legislation designed to reign in said judiciary run amok. Instant constitutional crisis, just in time for election days.

I wish I could say Yoo's an idiot, because it would make this easier. Truth is, he's plenty smart, which makes him something more like malevolent. And I'd just love to know how his Boalt (Berkeley) students receive his peculiar brand of wingnuttery in that bastion of liberalism.

Posted by: moon at October 20, 2006 02:35 PM | PERMALINK