John Yoo woulda made a great Nazi

My conscience is beyond shocked. I'm so glad I'm not an American.

As disgusting and legally (even more morally) perverted that argumentation is, it is not recently discovered knowledge is it?

But hasn´t that been the legal argumentation of this administration all along? And by the way, this is highlighted beyond other things in the awesome "Bush´s War" doc that yt posted the other day.

Though from a European point of view this argument is just plain inconceivable under any legal view.
Whatever happened to the principal of rule of law?

I wonder though how your courts work exacty. Wouldn´t have your Supreme Court have a field day with this? (Though thinking about Gitmo one might doubt that)
Or is it actually a legal argument that bears some weight that the president has the constitutional authority to exclude these "interrogations" from the law? Would "war time" be an argument? Bear in mind I am curious.

And just to add on a semantical level: The comparism to a Nazi would be wrong here, since the Nazis had Laws for that. And even courts ruling like that. (I have read some of these laws and rulings....There is a reason our constitution has been crafted like this, thanks to the lawyers of the respective US administration).

Oh he would have made a great Nazi under that assumption. No coincidence we still have the term "terrible lawyer" (loose translation of "schreckliche Juristen") for lawyers of this period, meaning people who just followed orders)

Patton Oswalt made a joke about how living in Bush's America made him think that he was living in the bizarro-world version of our country. What does it say that this memo was finally released on April Fool's Day?

Is it January 2009 yet?

At least we will get a clear change in policy on torture regardless of who wins in November.

April Fools! Right? It's gotta be... (sighs)

That's a dangerous and terrifying justification right there.

Yoo is a serious piece of shit. It amazes me that he continues to respond to interviews and, with a straight face, honestly believes that he was in the right when it came to issuing these "opinions." Has he ever said no to Cheney?

Funny you should mention that... this is from an article in the latest issue of Vanity Fair-

The emphasis is mine. I saw this article quoted on Shakesville, where there is a link to the entire thing.

The G.W. Bush presidency will one day be regarded as the nadir of the office.

Dude, Ralph Nader is a good man and he's never been President!

Get it.


Yes, it's a horrible joke, but it's the only reaction to this whole sick mess I can muster without punching through my laptop screen.

I'm not too sure about this, especially after some reading on McCain's caving on the torture issue:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip...e_b_87163.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/wa...hp&oref=slogin

I guess this can chalked up as him trying to win the presidency but why take the chance?

I thought I debunked, or at least added texture to, this charge a few weeks ago.

He made his views pretty clear on Letterman last night. He said the US needs to make a commitment to never torture another person. He also said he wants to close Gitmo.

ETA: Link to transcript.

I know this is true for any candidate but I was trying to say that there is a difference between his tough "moderate" talk and what he actually does. I think that as it becomes more well known that this administration doesn't give a fuck about torture, more and more politicians will publicly denounce it but quietly allow it to happen, through ambiguous wording or through signing statements.

jvc, he also has a way of negating pronouncements he has made previously (his self-contradiction on privatizing social security, for a recent example). Of all the issues on the table, I can see how he might be serious about this one, but he also seems to mean what he says about as consistently as the poor souls on Celebrity Rehab (not that it makes a difference to me since I would never vote for him anyway).

Close Gitmo and do what? Hold these people without charge somewhere else or try them and proceed from there?

I'd like to believe him, but I don't. He doesn't strike me as being very sincere and I think it's a mistake to take Republican politicians at their word. It'd be nice to think that Gitmo is on borrowed time regardless of who wins the election, though. As it is, though, I feel like I'm listening to my crackhead cousin ask for money, swearing that it's for something other than drugs.

Or maybe I'm wrong! The pendulum does swing, after all. Republicans didn't always operate the way Bush and Cheney And Santorum and Amb. Bolton (ptui!) and that guy with the wide stance and that lunatic Kathryn Harris and that shameless bastard Gonzales and so do, so it stands to reason there will come a time when they won't operate that way again. But I don't think it'll be the next presidential term.

It is inconceivable to me that a President McCain would allow torture to happen. As one of the 5 hard core resisters in the Hanoi Hilton, he knows that torture is evil, ineffective, and ultimately destructive.

yt, this is the kind of floating insinuation that's poisoning American politics. It's wrong when conservatives do it to liberals, and it's wrong when liberals do it to conservatives.

I think it could be that way if McCain is the next president. I don't think it could have been with any of the people he defeated in the primaries.

I'm not trying to come off as a total punch-drinker, here. I may still vote for Obama. But while you or any reasonable person may disagree with McCain's policies or positions, I think it's unfair to cast aspersions on the man.

But you understand my lack of confidence, yes?

And I agree that he's the nominee of choice. Romney said point blank he was all about torture, and the various theocrats were a bit preachy. I don't imagine McCain's the unhinged sort you find at Free Republic, but I don't think it's casting aspersions to suggest McCain might fool himself into believing enhanced interrogation techniques aren't really torture either - he wouldn't be the first. Nor do I think it's out of line to think he'll maintain current policies for the sake of his voter base. I think he'll maintain the status quo as much as he can. It will have got him the presidency, after all.

Maybe, but he is willing to let people sit there forever without a trial. Committed to the institution of American justice he aint.

I wonder what kind of mind-altering drugs they're using. I'm fascinated, in a gut-wrenching way.

I don't understand how anything yt said is hurtful to American politics. McCain has changed positions or said one thing and done another many times. Is it such a crazy stretch to suggest that there is a possibility that he might not be as tough on torture as he says? I really don't think so. I can very easily see him allowing "enhanced interrogation techniques."
I'm not going to give him a pass for being tortured.

Besides, if a guy can be President after being tortured, how bad can it be?

Am I the only one who read that as 'John Woo woulda made a great Nazi'? Damn, I need sleep.

I agree; normally I'd be willing to cut some slack regarding the handling of crises like 9/11 (and the proxy "War on Terrorism" that went with it) or Katrina, but this is entirely too much. Somewhere on down the line, the straw broke the camel's back, and it was quite a while ago.

Let's see:

-Numerous (and I do mean numerous) cabinet resignations due to various scandals, corruptions, and embarrassments. A hallmark of the Nixon, Grant, and Harding administrations.

-Poor response to a natural disaster crisis in Katrina; one of the aforementioned cabinet resignations occurs in order to take the fall for absurdly incompetent organization and a relief effort that indicated little more than a lack of interest in the plight of LA citizens.

-A bungled and completely unjustified war that seems impossible to retreat from without causing havoc and losing. Vietnam parallels are too easy to draw upon here.

-Trampling on civil liberties via the PATRIOT Act (otherwise known as the "4th Amendment? What 4th Amendment?" Act*) and legalized torture (which they don't even try to cover up anymore!)

-A greatly diminished sense of respect for America both at home and amongst the international communities; hard to define, but those sentiments are definitely there. Probably the most embarrassing time period in American history since the Civil Rights Movement (which, for the record, was only embarrassing because there were people opposed to the idea of equality and integration in a country founded on such ideals.)

-One for the road: the steady and continued destruction of the US school system by trying to make it nationally uniform via NCLB. Horrible idea with funding; even worse without it.

I'm sure there's at least half a dozen more, but I'm tired and depressed, and I needed to vent my anger somewhere. It's interesting to note that George Bush now possesses several public approval ratings records among U.S. presidents: the highest ranking in history (92% immediately after 9/11), the lowest ranking in history (19% very recently), and the greatest disparity between the highest and the lowest, a record formerly held by Truman. Unlike with good old Harry, I do not think history will be so kind to Mr. Bush.



*Edit: Also, the 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments, which slipped my mind for some reason. We don't need no stinking Bill of Rights, man! The Constitution's just a piece of paper for the President to wipe his ass with!

Absolutely.

While anyone may fool himself into believing that enhanced interrogation techniques aren't torture, I find it very unlikely that McCain would do so. Aside from having it tattoed on his forehead, the guy's done everything someone can do to assert that such behavior would not be acceptable on his watch.

Will he maintain current policies? I think he'll maintain a lot of current policies - he is an unabashed conservative, after all. And I think it's reasonable and expected that he be challenged on these policies. My hope for an Obama/McCain general election is that it can be an election that's about political philosophy more than insinuation and the bullshit microscandal of the day.

But hey, that's just me. I like to dream the big dream.

This is one of the reasons why it's so hard for a long-serving senator to run for President. Changing positions, compromising, saying one thing and then having to back down and do another: that's what legislators do.

It's one thing to change positions because your constituents call for it. It's entirely another to change course mid-way through an election while your earlier position is still on your website and being repeated by your closest political allies because your money bundlers want a piece of the huge sums that get pumped into social security.

I don't see the privatization of social security as something Americans are calling for. Maybe you do in your circles, but considering Wall Street's devastating sins of the 1920s and the 2000s, I think it's the last place most Americans would want their future to be placed.

I applaud McCain standing up against torture up to this point, but pro-torture is the Bush position, and it's not such a leap that campaign finance pressure might drive him to change course on it.

I also don't think holding politicians accountable for the words coming out of their mouths is poisoning the political waters. But giving the current Republican administration the benefit of the doubt and not holding them accountable has gotten us into deep sh*t on every front of contemporary life.

That's exactly what scares me. Modern conservatives love torture (witness Romney's odious applause line: "I'd double GITMO."). Sure, there are exceptions, but most people I know who subscribe to the conservative mindset think torture is great. If McCain decides he needs these people he can, like most of us, self-rationalize a change.

It's an enormous leap. While McCain has tacked to the right, he is not running as Bush II. Torture is a personal issue on which he has positioned himself quite clearly. There is no more reason to expect that he will change his position on this than there is to expect that he will ask Al Gore to serve as his running mate.

It's one thing to hold politicians accountable. It's another to to levy vague charges against a particular individual. If you're saying, "He's a republican and I don't like republicans," fine. But you can't just wave him off with, "Oh, he's a flip-flopper."

Since there's been too little effort to address election fraud and corruption, I'm fairly certain McCain will be president, so I do hope you're right.

But to me, he seems very much like he's running as Bush II. But I also think asking Al Gore to serve as his running mate is exponentially less likely than him, if not overtly being as pro-torture as Bush, not doing enough to end it and definitely not holding the facilitators accountable.


The charge of my post was not vague at all. It was that he has very recently changed positions on a pretty important issue, which demonstrably throws his sincerity and commitment on issues into question. Especially since he has given no explanation for his 180° turn on privatizing social security in particular.

In terms of "He's a republican and I don't like republicans," it is fair to say that I don't agree with republican ideology in general, think huge swaths of it have proved catastrophic to America and the world, and have never encountered a republican I would ever vote for. (Not that democrats have all the answers, but they're certainly closer to the things I value and think important than republicans).

My comment that I would never vote for him anyway was to illustrate that he's not winning me over or losing me as a supporter by any of this because it's not on the table for me personally -- a caveat that is a reaction to the many "That's it - I'm definitely not voting for Obama now" or "If this isn't the thing that should make Hillary drop out I don't know what is" type of sentiment I see all over the place.

We all pick and choose what we want to acknowledge or brush off in terms of the candidate we have chosen to support - I'm just as susceptible to that as anyone.

yt, people routinely change their minds on issues as they consider them. I propose that McCain has given torture enough consideration, however, to have achieved certainty. Nevertheless, you're holding him to a vague standard of "not doing enough to end it." He has said, unequivocally, that America will cease this odious practice under a McCain administration. I'd go so far as to say that he's made it a plank. If you aren't willing to buy that, then you aren't willing to believe a word that issues from his mouth. Add that to your insinuation that a McCain victory can only be achieved through election fraud and corruption, and it leads me to believe that the national reconciliation we need in this country won't happen regardless of who wins.

So does she! Just ask her!

I must admit a certain handicap. At the moment, I just don't have time for the serious McCain research I intend to do in May. I'm basing my arguments on casual observance and knowledge gained from being a general purpose politics nerd.

I've just got a world of respect for this guy personally, and I think he's the only major candidate who understands (or is willing to articulate) the catastrophic consequences of wholesale withdrawal from Iraq. Further, I'm impressed by his willingness to take unpopular stances on issues such as immigration, Iraq, and, yes, his lack of support for bad legislation that he knew his opponents could use to label him as "soft on torture." Having said that, I'm sensitive to charges of opportunism and have become aware that airline pilots hate him, for some reason.

So I'm ok with people bashing his policies, but I stand up and pay attention when he's treated with contempt.

Well, that, and I've also noticed that all my message board stuff has been real warm and fuzzy, lately. It's high time I got into a good argument about something, dammit!

Deeds are more important than words. Bush's deeds-to-words record is shameful and the damage - much of which is irreversible - is done.

It's not an insinuation, it's a prediction based on the established trends of the past two elections. Do you honestly believe that there was not SERIOUS Republican election tampering in key states during the 00 and 04 elections? Until the people demand verifiable elections and standardized security practices, I fully expect the GOP to continue to subvert democratic elections.

McCain is a continuation of Bush military policies, at the very least. McCain is committed to achieving Bush's goals in Iraq, no matter how impossible or imperialistic (i.e. "democracy" by force and a handover of oil rights to multinational oil corporations). And look at the statistics reflecting how people feel about continuing to hemorrhage lives and vast sums of "lost" cash chasing Bush's fantasies of dominance in the Middle East. The majority of Americans want this occupation to end.

As for a national reconciliation, I would suggest something like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. So many crimes have been committed by this Republican administration, and so many important checks and balances have been dismantled, that it would be incredibly destructive to this country to let it go unaddressed.

I find it virtually impossible to imagine that McCain could be the president that will bring reconciliation. I don't know if Obama is the one either, frankly, but at least he acknowledges that our great country has been derailed.

Deeds more important than words? I fail to see how you can surmise that McCain will fail at reconciliation with his bipartisan legislative history. Obama's bipartisan bills were liberal bills that Republicans worked with him on, it wasn't like they had anti-liberal beliefs written into them that would anger the base Democrats. There is a reason that McCain's weakness will be getting the base to vote for him.

So what? We're talking about McCain, here.

You write as if the GOP were a unified organization, like Exxon. The GOP, just like the Democratic Party, is more like a collection of independent contractors. The McCain machine is as different from the Bush machine as the Clinton is from the Obama. Even if (and it's a big if) we accept that the tampering you allege occurred, we're talking about the Bush Machine. There is no reason to believe and no grounds to allege that McCain would engage in similar activity.

How do you mean? McCain has made a centerpiece of his opposition to one of Bush's dearest military policies, the continued use of Guantanamo Bay.

McCain understands Powell's doctrine of "you broke it you bought it." We broke Iraq, and we're responsible for making it right. The alternative is catastrophe.

The majority of Americans are wrong. Nevertheless, McCain took an unpopular stance in support of the surge when it looked like that position would cost him the nomination. He continues to state, clearly and concisely, the need for resolve in that theater at a time when he knows his opponents will use it against him in the national race. Clinton - well, she blows with the wind; and Obama's position of "only providing support and protecting our guys" sounds like just another way of rewording what we're already doing (I like Obama, but I fully expect that one of the first things we'll see in an Obama presidency is a speech that goes something like, "Now that I know what I know from sitting in the Big Chair, we're going to be in Iraq for a while."

Sounds to me like you want an inquisition.

McCain is a respected senator who has shown, time and again, a willingness to work alongside his democratic colleagues and who has earned the respect, if not the unqualified support, of people on both sides of the aisle. Is he a conservative? Oh, yeah. Will he support policies that democrats will hate? Oh, yeah. But just as you and I can come out on the opposite sides of so many issues, yet still maintain a friendly and respectful relationship, so can McCain lead this country away from the destructive course on which our national leadership has set us.

Honestly, I don't think that Iraq, or the economy, or health care is the biggest threat to the American polity today. I think the breakdown in civil society, the emergence of a "2nd place is 1st loser" mentality, and the unwillingness to compromise presents a greater long-term threat to the health of the nation. We need to remember that we all want what's best for America and, even though we may differ on the course, we're all aboard the same boat. I think both Obama and McCain can provide the leadership to make that happen, but neither can succeed if the partisans of their opposing camps can't or won't recognize the need for civil discourse. This is why I see red when I get e-mail insinuating that Obama is some kind of scary sleeper spy for militant Islam, and it's why I see red when I get e-mail insinuating that McCain is a corrupt torturer-in-waiting.

These are good men. They deserve our respect. The future of our nation may well depend on our ability to recognize that.

The GOP may not exactly be a unified organization but its supporters across the country have proved again and again that their allegiance to their party and extreme ideology overrides any sense of integrity when it comes to tampering with elections. Sure Karl Rove doesn't have a direct feed to their brains telling them, "Steal this election, my minions!", but they don't need that. Republican officials can break the law all by their lonesome. It doesn't matter how the McCain machine runs, what matters is what Republicans in positions of power do to make sure a Republican is in the White House, especially if Clinton is the nominee.

Whenever you state your opinion as fact, you weaken your argument that compromise is needed if we are to remedy our situation in this country.

I think McCain has shown in the past he doesn't follow the GOP party line to the letter, funny how some forget how not too long ago Republicans were having heart attacks over his nomination.

As far as his Gitmo comment, I'm glad he said that, it has some interesting implications as we mainly keep these guys in Gitmo so they're stuck in legal limbo. Bringing them to the US means they have to be afforded more rights, but we'll see. I hadn't heard him say that about Gitmo before, maybe he had.

That's a great point, Nicholas. However, I think that yt and I have had enough conversations in which we've robustly staked out initial positions, then worked toward mutually palatable formulations, that willingness to engage is understood.

Thing is, though, that I'm not trying to argue for government through the fickleness of the mass. Nor am I trying to argue that we should all hold hands and sing kum bay yah. I expect conservatives and liberals to argue their positions with vigor. I expect politicking and maneuvering. But I think we've somehow gone too far. We've come to assume that system is strong enough to withstand incivility and uberpartisanship. I think we're wrong. I think the system is more fragile than we know, and I think we all need to take a breath and step back.

This is why Obama's message resonates across party lines. People understand that he's a liberal, but people see in him a Tip O'Neill kind of liberal - the kind of guy who could duke it out with Reagan all day long, then drop by the White House for a drink with the old man before heading home. We've had enough of divisiveness.

So sure, yt and I can post that we think the other is wronger than Samuel L. Jackson in a swishy hat, but I think that we both recognize that the other wants what is best for the country even when we disagree on what that "best" is. There are things we can find compromise on, and there are things we can't. That's ok, because the mutual recognition that we're in the same boat provides the underpinning of civility that's essential to the functioning of the polity.

I agree with a large amount of what you say, Frank. I have grown up in a time where extreme partisanship is the standard. In the short time that I've been politically aware (since the beginning of the Bush administration), I don't think I've ever even seen politicians really reaching across the aisle. I really try to be mindful of the fact that the solution to many problems is not anger and unequivocal condemnation, but rational thinking and compromise, something that you and yt have consistently shown.

But on the other hand, what has willfully been done to the country is so terrible, in my mind, there comes a point where compromise is potentially giving in to injustice. People like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, Gonzalez, Yoo and many others deserve to be severely punished for what they've done and in this talk of compromise, I also worry that people will lose sight of this. I also fear that "compromise" is often used as a code word for "capitulation". Glenn Greenwald sums it better than I ever can:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...ipartisanship/

Either way, whoever is the next president, I think it's fairly safe to assume that there will be much more vocal opposition to any continuation of Bush's extreme policies.

What I'm trying to communicate is that there needs to be a sea change in the leadership of this country, not the incremental shift McCain may (or may not, depending on who's making the prediction) represent.

Nicholas's response is pretty spot on in terms of my observations wrt the Republican machine.

This is a direct question, FC: There was no Republican election tampering in 00 and 04, True or false?

Again, you put a lot more faith in McCain's will and resolve to follow words with deeds than I do. We as a people have been lied to consistently throughout the Bush administration, and the hubristic cover-ups, media enabling, and stacking of legal decks have been so thorough that the cancerous culture surrounding Bush has grown exponentially more powerful. McCain's presidency will signal to this culture that the party is far from over, and I find it extremely hard to believe that he could follow through with any promise even if he shouted from every rooftop that he fully intended to. He is too invested in attaining this power to rock the boat too much, and the boat needs to be rocked.

The current situation is catastrophe. This isn’t a war, it's an occupation. Thousands, maybe millions of Iraqis have died, many more thousands injured; 4000 Americans, many more than that injured, and where are we five years later? Bush, Cheney and the good folks at ExxonMobil/ChevronTexaco/etc. broke Iraq, bankrolled by loans your kids and mine (and grandkids too probably) will pay interest on to China their whole lives – and for what?

We can't make it right because the conditions for making it right, by US government standards, are that we won't leave until we control those oil reserves. I imagine this is not an acceptable peace from the Iraqi perspective. Pro-war Republicans say words like "democracy" and "sovereign government" and to me that sounds like code for imposing the US will on a populace that doesn't want it. What evidence do you have that there will ever be peace in Iraq while we're there? The absurdity of the amount of cash that gets poured into that country (yet never seeming to actually do the things it's intended to do, like rebuilding the infrastructure, schools, hospitals, etc. – necessary safeguards people like al-Sadr are providing and thereby gaining more trust than we are) is eye-wateringly ironic when you consider our own crumbling infrastructure, failing schools, poverty statistics, etc.

That's what the establishment said about Vietnam, but eventually, the tide of the American will washed over the powers in Washington. It may take a few terms to accomplish, but it stands a good chance of happening – it happened with civil rights, it happened with Vietnam. People want out of this war and feel in their hearts, like I do, that it's unwinnable because of its unstated objectives (oil seizure and political control) and its utterly bungled execution (by the civilian leadership, not the troops). The retired generals think so. Many active troops and veterans think so. It's not just lefties like me. No one in the administration can even pinpoint the true objective with any kind of specificity or outline the strategy or timeline.

Maybe McCain's stance in support of the surge was unpopular with democrats, but it wasn’t unpopular among the Republican establishment, the Bush machine, and the elite fundraising communities. Also: nobody has said anything that has resonated with me about Iraq since Kucinich and Edwards dropped out.

Au contraire! An inquisition - like what's going on at Gitmo and countless other black prisons - is what I want people to be held accountable for. I would cheer madly if Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Rove, etc. were tried before a jury and ultimately sent to prison, but since that will never in a million years happen, I think the best thing to hope for would be a South Africa-style truth and reconciliation commission, which is pretty much the opposite of a "war on terror"-style inquisition.

FC, you know I love our debates and have a lot of respect for you personally, but what you just said is a leap of faith – just as I would say the same thing about Obama based on my faith in him. Neither is based on empirical fact or record. And as I said a few graphs earlier, I believe we are in such a deep hole that it's going to take drastic changes to dig us out of it, and I just don’t see McCain as the man who can do that. I can't see him taking on the powerful forces that would fight dirty to hang onto their spoils. He won't be as craven as Bush by a longshot, but he will also not wrest control out of the hands of the military industrial complex and multinational corporations emboldened by the failed oil man currently in office, and restore liberty and non-public-abusing policies to American life.

I agree that the breakdown in civil society is deeply destructive - but I don't think it's a cause in itself. I think it's a symptom of the bigger, unspoken problems we face - the gutting/homogenization of public education and the generation of kids that has been abandoned; the corporate free-for-all that has at once demanded overworking to pay the bills, struggling for even the most rudimentary healthcare, and all but eliminated the relevance and place in society of the middle class worker; prohibitive education costs that set a ceiling on all but the most extraordinary poor kids to achieve a sound college education; the free-floating fear that will only grow worse the longer we make enemies by occupying Iraq, and by far the worst: the corporate octopus that has swallowed the news media.

Our one stop-gap to fascism as a society is a free press. Yet corporate control has allowed for the profit-before-service revolution in the news media and turned TV and radio into alternately one long commercial, a trivial smokescreen and a mind-numbing hateathon. Tame the corporate masters and reason will have a chance in this country again. When a fighting chance at a living wage, an increase in the quality and accessibility of education, a reining in of advertising, and a free, independent press return, reason will follow, and with that will come a return to civil society. Do you see McCain shifting focus away from imperialistic wars in the Middle East to staunching America’s own open sores?

I agree, and I admire the way McCain has conducted himself as a senator – there was a time when he was my favorite Republican – but that doesn't mean I think he is the best choice for president.

I'm not really following McCain's campaign among the Republican base too closely, but my understanding was that they don't like that he's not a certified born again evangelical like Mr. Bush and that's why he's allegedly "fracturing the party."