Balkinization
an unanticipated consequence of
Jack M. Balkin
E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Bernard Harcourt harcourt at uchicago.edu
Scott Horton shorto at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman marty.lederman at comcast.net
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at princeton.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
Yoo: If you don't like our torture, vote us out of office
JB
John Yoo, who served in the Office of Legal Counsel from 2001 to 2003, tries, without much success, to defend the Bush Administration in this op-ed in the Los Angeles Times.
I've only met John once, at a Federalist Society panel on judicial nominations. He was charming, polite, and his arguments were lawyerly and well made, although since I was on the other side I wasn't fully persuaded. In this case, however, I have to say that I don't think the arguments he offers in the op-ed are very good at all. He also engages in a non-sequitur, dragging out the old ticking time bomb scenario (or in this case, "a nuclear weapon in an American city") to conclude that there must be general authorization for all "strategic and tactical decisions" a President might make as Commander-in-Chief. But the fact that we might give the President the benefit of the doubt in the ticking time bomb situation does not imply that he should be free from all congressional oversight.
Yoo also tries to defend one of the most wrongheaded claims in the torture memo, the claim that Congressional laws that impinge on the President's assertions of his Commander-in-Chief power should be construed not to apply to the President. I think this argument, taken to its logical conclusion, destroys the checks and balances in our Constitution and makes the President unaccountable to the Rule of Law.
There is one thing in this op-ed that I do agree with: At the very end, Yoo says: "If the American people disagree with [the President's] policy [on prisoner interrogations], they have options: Congress can change the law, or the electorate can change the administration."
And there you have it. If you don't like what we are doing, throw us out of office. We dare you. Double dare you.
I think we should take up that challenge, don't you?
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There is one aspect through this op-ed which Buy Runescape Goldi truly do concur with: in the especially end, Yoo says: "If the usa individuals disagree with [the President's] plan [on prisoner interrogations], they've options: Congress can change the law, or even the electorate can change theWOW Gold To Buy administration."