Wednesday, May 07, 2008
A question for Brad DeLong: Why is John Yoo different from Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn?
Lefty econo-blogger Brad DeLong is in something of a twist over John Yoo's appointment to Boalt Hall (the University of California at Berkeley's law school). Yoo was head of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, and famously the author of a subsequently repudiated legal opinion authorizing interrogation techniques regarded as "torture" in some circles. The story is well-known to readers of Jack Goldsmith's excellent book, The Terror Presidency
DeLong has written an open letter to the chair of Berkeley's faculty senate requesting an inquiry into Yoo and, if appropriate, the recommendation of sanctions against him on various possible grounds. Some of these are rifle-shot allegations specific to the rendering of legal opinions in contravention of established professional standards, but others go more generally to Yoo's moral and ethical suitability. DeLong, to his credit, specific says that he lacks the expertise to sit in judgment of Yoo, but believes that the questions raised by Yoo's conduct are important enough that Berkeley has a duty to investigate.
One is forced to wonder whether Brad DeLong believes that it is appropriate for the University of Illinois at Chicago to employ would-be terrorist Bill Ayers, or for Northwestern University Law School to employ Bernadine Dohrn, who actually declared war on the United States and acted on it. Now, DeLong is not a professor at either university and probably feels under no obligation to comment on the status of Ayers and Dohrn, but if they were at Berkeley would he ask that they, too, be investigated?
Inquiring minds want to know.
8 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed May 07, 06:11:00 PM:
What the hell, let's throw Ward Churchill into the mix.
By , at
Wed May 07, 06:25:00 PM:
By 
Escort81, at
Wed May 07, 06:51:00 PM:
Once you go down that road, there won't be enought professors to teach the students at all of the colleges around the country!
Cornel West - he tried to do away with the Matrix, oh wait, that was a movie.
As has been discussed previously when the war/"torture" memo first came out, the battle against Yoo is more than whether he keeps his position at Cal -- some lawyers want him indicted or at least disbarred based on the substance of his memoranda while in government.
By , at
Wed May 07, 10:07:00 PM:
Seriously, Yoo's only real crime is he wasn't attacking some Christians or other conservatives. Delong, no doubt, still sizzles over Clinton even though his Justice Department killed more actual Americans than
terrorists which Bush is claimed to have "tortured".
Didn't you know to spools like Delong, bombing the military or police stations are the highest form of patriotism?
By SR, at
Thu May 08, 12:26:00 AM:
TH:
What exactly is the nature of the "repudiation" of Yoo's memo?
By , at
Thu May 08, 07:57:00 AM:
Colleges seem to love terrorists and their supporters. Feminist Liberal Attorney Lynne Stewart who was convicted of aiding the Blind Shiek Omar Rahman is not teaching at Hofstra Univ in New York,
By TigerHawk, at
Thu May 08, 08:36:00 AM:
SR "nature of repudiation" -
Yoo's successor as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel at DOJ, Jack Goldsmith, determined that there were serious flaws in the reasoning of Yoo's opinions on coercive interrogation, and withdrew them and replaced them with narrower findings. This is all described in The Terror Presidency, which I keep recommending because it is the antidote to bullshit from both sides on this subject. The key point, which is never mentioned by Yoo/Bush-haters, is that Yoo's opinion was more expansive than necessary, and that the CIA's own interrogations never went to the limits of the authority that Yoo's opinion conferred. So it is not the case that anybody actually did the stuff that Yoo authorized.
By , at
Tue May 13, 12:40:00 PM:
WE FLUSH THINGS LIKE BILL AYERS DONT THE TOILET ALL THE TIME
