John Yoo's Breathtaking Ignorance. . . . . . . . . (Sinking Ship Alert)

[Faryn Balyncd]

Andrew Napolitano: John Yoo's Breathtaking Ignorance



. . . In his startling mea culpa, published in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Professor Yoo confessed to advising President Bush that he possessed powers from some source other than the Constitution, that in the name of public safety he could cut down all laws written for the express purpose of restraining the president, and that Americans would expect no less than this so long as they were actually kept safe as a result of it.

He advanced the argument that since the president's first job is to keep us safe, he could disregard the 1978 FISA law as "obsolete" -- since it was written in an era when modern day non-state terrorism was not contemplated. By this unprecedented and perverse logic, one wonders if the president was told if he could disregard as obsolete any law that was inconvenient to his purposes; even the Supreme Law of the Land itself, which the Constitution declares itself to be.

The whole purpose of FISA was to abolish the Nixonion notion that "If the president does it, it's not illegal.". . . . .




President Bush argued frequently and forcefully that his first job was to keep us safe. . . . He was wrong. The Constitution tells us that his sole job was to enforce the Constitution; and that means keeping us free. Free from tyrants who sought and claimed power from thin air; free from prince-like federal agents who could behave without constitutional or legal restraint; free to live with a government that obeyed its own laws. Any president who keeps us safe but unfree is rejecting his oath to the American people.



http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/07/17/john-yoos-breaktaking-ignorance/?test=latestnews

(I guess this is one of those rare times Faux publishes something of value.....What is it about rats & sinking ships?)







:kick:

[Hepburn]

1. Assholes like Yoo make me embarrassed to be a lawyer.

Dumb, evil, fuck...:grr:

[Javaman]

2. Assholes like Yoo make me embarrassed to be a human. nt

[Viking12]

3. No worries. Yoo isn't human...

he's obviously some alien lizard creature.

[Hepburn]

4. OMG....

...when I first read your post...I thought you said YOU and not YOO!

:hi:

[Critters2]

12. That's how I read it, too. And I thought,

:wtf:

[Ikonoklast]

6. Assholes like Yoo make me embarrassed to be an asshole.

Even *we* have standards.

[hiphopnation]

7. ...

:rofl:

:thumbsup:

[tblue37]

9. DUzy worthy! nt

[Senator]

5. War criminals like Yoo should be hounded... (video link)

...right to the door of their jail cell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2HD3O7g8_o&feature=related">"How long before it's torture?"

---

[ControlledDemolition]

8. K&R. n/t

[pnorman]

10. Breathtaking IGNORANCE, indeed! I had to Google to get the complete oath:

Here it is at Wiki:

Oath of office of the President of the United States: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office_of_the_President_of_the_United_States

Here's an interesting excerpt:

The option of taking an oath or an affirmation

Franklin Pierce was the only president known to use the word affirm rather than swear. Theodore Roosevelt did not use a Bible when taking the oath in 1901. Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, and Richard Nixon swore the oath on two Bibles. John Quincy Adams swore on a book of law.<4> Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on a Roman Catholic missal on Air Force One. Washington kissed the Bible afterwards,<5> and subsequent presidents followed suit, up to Harry Truman,<6> but Dwight Eisenhower broke that tradition by saying his own prayer instead of kissing the Bible.<7>

"Theodore Roosevelt did not use a Bible when taking the oath in 1901."
and
"John Quincy Adams swore on a book of law"

Godless atheists, the both of them! Those Gitmo dog Kennels would have been too good for them!

pnorman

[Faryn Balyncd]

13. interesting excerpt

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. GOD, and Yoo teaches Constitutional law?

EGADS...