How DARE you, Professor Yoo? Crawl back under your rock

they're fighting amongst themselves... this is good... very good...

Congressional Republicans had carefully orchestrated the finale of the legislative year to be a showdown with Democrats over which party is best equipped to keep the country safe, a handpicked fight on traditional Republican turf.

But the high-stakes standoff between President Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) over military tribunals could ruin that legislative strategy, political analysts and strategists say. Instead of fighting Democrats, Republicans find themselves in the middle of an intraparty struggle between an embattled president and two of the most respected figures in their party, McCain and his ally on the issue, former secretary of state Colin L. Powell.

it's a bizarre kind of comfort that what they're fighting amongst themselves ABOUT is nothing more or less than the most fundamental principles that divide so-called civilized people from barbarians...

[A]llow us to elaborate, again, exactly what Mr. Bush means by "the program." He's talking about the practice of sequestering terrorist suspects indefinitely and without charge in secret foreign locations and holding them incommunicado even from the International Red Cross. Until recently, such "disappearances" were the signature of Third World dictatorships. U.S. adoption of them has roiled relations with our closest European allies and impeded collaboration with foreign police and intelligence services.

Mr. Bush also wants the CIA to be able to treat its detainees to such practices as "cold cell," or induced hypothermia, in which detainees are held naked in near-freezing temperatures and repeatedly doused with water; "long standing," in which prisoners are handcuffed in an uncomfortable standing position and forced to remain there for up to 40 hours; and prolonged sleep deprivation.

what might/could/should happen in an ardently prayed-for scenario...?

[I]f the Republicans stand firm, and Democrats insist on the needed changes, they might just require Mr. Bush to recognize that he is subject to the same restraints that applied to every other president of this nation of laws.

but, then we have john yoo, an enabler extraordinaire, crawling out from under his uc-berkeley rock, to deliver an impassioned defense of perpetual war and a totalitarian state...

[T]he president has broader goals than even fighting terrorism — he has long intended to make reinvigorating the presidency a priority. Vice President Dick Cheney has rightly deplored the “erosion of the powers and the ability of the president of the United States to do his job” and noted that “we are weaker today as an institution because of the unwise compromises that have been made over the last 30 to 35 years.”

[...]

Congress now must act to guide our counterterror policy, but it should not try to micromanage the executive branch, particularly in war, where flexibility of action is paramount.

professor yoo... if this was any other presidential administration we were talking about with any other cadre of people at the top, you might at least have grounds for a hearing... but, in the context (a word your friend, dick cheney, is so fond of) of the moment, given the massive number of lies we've been told, the incredible abuses of power and money we've seen unfold, the tragic squandering of lives and resources, the staggering arrogance, the obtuseness, the unwillingness to engage in any kind of dialogue, the demonizing of critics, how can you in any conscience DARE to continue to defend these out-of-control criminals...? how DARE you lecture the american public via a national newspaper on how the country should be run...? how DARE you, professor yoo...?

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