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On Comedy Central’s The Daily Show last night, Jon Stewart interviewed John Yoo.
Our guest tonight, John Yoo, the former Deputy Assistant Atty. General, author of the so called "torture memos." But fear not, "torture memos" is like "The Vagina Monologues," but instead of Swoosie Kurtz and Stockard Channing talking about their hoo-hahs, it lays the legal foundation for torture.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Here’s a link to the show’s opening where Jon Stewart and John Oliver poke at the republicans for their rewriting of history in regards to terror attacks on the United States.
18 Comments
zomg what an ass
Stewart was a bit slow on the uptake, failing to grasp that Yoo was called upon by Bush to determine the bounds of what was permissible under treaty law, so as to provide some indemnification if Bush had decided to adhere to treaty law.
What we saw last night was the Hannah Arendt called “The Banality of Evil,” that each and every one of us has the capacity built in to do unspeakable evil things given the proper social support and context.
Similar to the row about Harry Reid’s use of the word “negro,” he should have said that any white person in America, no matter how hard we try to check it, still retains the racism attendant to being raised in such a society deep within us. There is no crime involved, rather an acknowledgment that we are creatures of our culture, our culture is racist, and there we are never “done” with fighting racism.
But that would conflict with building the illusion of a post-racist culture amidst a culture still steeped in racism.
“With anti-torture protest continuing to focus on the presence on the University of California faculty of former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo, UC officials have adopted a new tactic. Yoo will again teach spring semester at Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall) – but the location of his classroom is being kept secret from the public, and Yoo himself is unlikely to be physically present for the first night of his class Tuesday, January 12.”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1001/S00202.htm
This book is another GOP welfare project. Sales/Payoffs are meant to keep Yoo quiet and pay for his lawyers. We need to investigate the GOP best selling book machine.
Sarah’s book would be a great place to start discounts on the book started within a month of publication below $10 discounts. It sounds to me that GOPers bought tons of books on pre order then resold them.
John was asked a year after 9/11 to define torture sorry we had already tortured by then. We had already tortured innocents without trial.
Thats the operative word I think however torture doesn’t work!
If it did wouldn’t Bush have found Ossama by now never mind its wrong it doesn’t work.
Yoo is so popular you made me smile Blue:) thanks I need good news to start each day.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-11-2010/fright-club
No terror attacks in America under Bush? Stewart points out 9/11, Anthrax attacks, Shoe Bomber, Grenade attack during war etc etc.
Who ever wrote the GOP talking point there were no terror attacks under Bush is pushing the Black is White, Night is Day limits of the media to brain wash people past their reasonable limits.
I think even Orwell would say Big Brother can’t make you believe a disaster didn’t happen if Big Brother can’t get the people to resume their normal everyday lives first.
Then you can pretend stuff never happened. Oil prices go up, Bush and Greenspan fearful of a slowing economy create the housing boom by lowering interest rates.
Banks gamble with the housing money, banks lose money home values drop economy goes to crap.
You can’t claim the past was great when the effects of the past are still creating a Crisis today.
Nobody in the GOP understands PR anymore. I don’t care if 100 GOPers all repeat the lie no terror attack under Bush, Bush kept us safe.
It won’t work if you lost your home, job and or health insurance or if you are forced to buy health insurance.
Is he teaching a required class? I would hope no one showed up at all. Sadly, I realize there are as many conservative apologists at Boalt as there are human rights activists.
I hope his career just atrophies and he slithers away while we call for justice.
I don’t think I can stomach watching these videos…the quotes above are enough to make me gag. So Yoo’s position is that the President’s most important role is commander in chief, otherwise it’s a nominally smaller role to play? Huh.
And we have to be at war? Well, that’s true, if you are set up to make money through the military. I do believe that neo cons believe that. Otherwise we’d have Osama bin Laden captured by now.
“Yoo’s course is listed on Boalt’s schedule by day and time only, with location only as “To Be Announced.” Calls requesting the UC Registrar and Berkeley Law divulge the information are being rebuffed. Although Yoo formerly taught major courses including Constitutional Law, Separation of Powers, and Ethics, in the spotlight of controversy over his role as legal architect of the Bush-Cheney torture program Yoo has now been re-assigned to teach only a single course on the California constitution, to a class limited to 24 students, and has been given a co-teacher.”
Picture chubby Yoo trying to outrun all of the protesters who are going to be there. Maybe his class will be held at a secret location off campus? Or by teleconference?
I only watched the show once last night but having said that I think Jon easily demonstrated in the aired segments the flaws in Yoo’s arguments. The most important is that Yoo said that especially in periods of war time, that he president/executive had unlimited power do to anything he pleased. So as Jon revealed that if that was the prevailing view, then he didn’t need any freakin legal justification to torture (then why did Yoo give him just that if Yoo believes it wasn’t even necessary). As I said that was just one of the most transparent and glaring hypocrisy easily exposed by Jon. There were others. I thought it just revealed just how amateurish a “constitutional lawyer” that Professor Yoo really is. His arguments were easily exposed and ripped to shreds. Just makes you really wonder just who was in charge. And the other glaring claim by Yoo, about how the question of torture had never been addressed before Yoo and these guys came to town in our nation’s history…how Jon kept his composure and didn’t have his jaw drop open in just utter amazement is beyond me. But he mentioned how treaties were signed banning it so someone must have actually um, say thought about it before. Gawd, Amateur hour 101 here and appears more like a Bush Heckuva Job Yoo-ey type appointment…. and I pity those who are paying for this professor to teach them. wow.
Now off to watch all the clips. I’m sure someone with legal expertise could do a whole post on these clips…(bmaz?)
Just want to add that there are 3 extended interviews over at the dailyshow website.
Yes, if the president enjoys unchecked and unlimited power during wartime, that there is one huge incentive to go to war, n’est-ce pas?
Listen, you wouldn’t want this guy Yoo as your lawyer in any trial. As a lawyer, he’s an idiot. He’d be laughed out of any courtroom, and really, out of any lawfirm doing real legal work. He is the Heckuva Job Brownie of the legal profession.
Boalt is a laughingstock – not even considered second tier any more…
That’s a really fascinating analysis re the underlying drivers for the GOP best selling book machine.
He will be arrested and brought to justice one day. But so should Bush and Cheney and the whole gang. This is the kind of world we live in? Why is he on a comedy show?
Sadly yes, this is the world we live in. He’s on a comedy show because Jon does the best job of exposing these clowns while they think they are getting a book plug.