NOW John Yoo supports the Constitution?
March 27th, 2008, 10:49 am · Post a Comment · posted by fsherman
You all remember John Yoo, right? The former Justice Department attorney who argued that in the war on terror, the president, as commander-in-chief, couldn’t be bound by such restrictions as the Geneva Conventions, the Constitution, the law of the land? That torture wasn’t really torture if the torturer didn’t realize how bad the pain was, or if it wasn’t equivalent to the pain of major organ failure? Who believes there’s no legal restriction barring the president from, say, having a child’s testicles crushed in a nut-cracker to force the kid’s father to talk?
In a Wall Street Journal column, Yoo professes himself shocked, shocked and appalled at the Democrats’ “undemocratic” feuding over superdelegates rather than letting the people pick the candidate: “Without direct election by the people, the Framers said that the executive would lose its independence and vigor and become a mere servant of the legislature.” Not only that, but to win support from superdelegates, a candidate might (gasp!) make political deals!
Imagine that. Making political deals. Certainly that would never, ever, ever happen in a race without superdelegates.
And in point of fact, we don’t have direct election by the people: If we did, Gore would have been elected in 2000. The Founders considered direct election as an option and decided on the electoral college instead, for better or worse.
And don’t forget, this is the nomination, not the election, and the nominating process has never been as clean and orderly as Yoo seems to think (read a few accounts of past political campaigns and you’ll see what I mean), and certainly not an exercise in pure democracy.
And frankly, if Yoo was that concerned about democracy and American freedom, he should have said something back when he was with Justice. A little late now, even if anything he said was accurate.
