Should Berkeley Law School have tenured John Yoo in the first place? Some law professors I know say that the shoddy quality of the argument in his OLC memos is powerful evidence that BLS should not have. I don't have expertise to evaluate whether their quality is so low as to make it impossible for him to be an effective teacher of future lawyers and researcher into the state of the law. But I do think that the question is open.Well, there you have it.
Does academic freedom protect you when you say what you do not believe? In a 2000 article, "The Imperial President Abroad" http://tinyurl.com/dl20090205, John Yoo writes that President Clinton exceeded the bounds of his powers as commander-in-chief: "accelerat[ing] disturbing trends in foreign policy that undermine democratic accountability and respect for the rule of law" by "render[ing] the War Powers Resolution a dead letter..."; using "troops... not to achieve total victory or to contain the spread of Soviet influence but in order to achieve more limited goals... whose long-term benefits for American security are unclear..."; and placing "American troops... under... non-American... commanders... threaten[ing] that basic principle of government accountability... [for] foreign officials have no obligation to pursue American policy, nor do they take an oath to uphold the Constitution..." In 2000 John Yoo "believed" that the president's commander-in-chief power was tightly circumscribed--that the president could not even lawfully order an American soldier to obey the orders of an allied commander. In 2003 John Yoo "believed" that the president's commander-in-chief power was plenary and unrestrained: that no matter what orders the president issued soldiers were absolutely and lawfully bound to obey them. It seems that John Yoo does not use "belief" in a normal way--that what John Yoo "believes" at any moment is simply what is convenient for his faction within the Republican Party.
[ cf Virtual Office Hours: John Yoo Edition ]
Clear PERSECUTION OF WHITE CHRISTIAN AMERICANS by Godless Radical Left Wing Shrill and Hysterical BeZerkleyItes!!!
Clearly in a time when Congress has authorized a CIC to be military about stuff, that stuff should be military, and people will need to understand the importance of being military about stuff, irregardless of when congress has established that it is time to be military about stuff....
Or in short, those who opposed Clinton when he had the Majik Wand of Wonderment remain the folks who caused 9/11 by failing to support the CIC to support the troops, and keep america safe from the godless unbelievers who would think that america were divided!!!
Which is why we should still round up those unbelievers and burn them at the stake so that all true believers will know that true believing is what it is all about....
Granted, the alternative is that law is merely what the current ruling clique is willing to torture folks for....