John Yoo (yes, that guy) Comes Out Against the Sotomayor Nomination

[Bleacher Creature]

H/T to TPM. And no, this is not a joke -- although this piece should be used as an example to anyone who needs the word "chutzpah" defined for them.

http://blog.american.com/?p=1187

Empathy Triumphs Over Excellence
By John Yoo

May 26, 2009, 1:03 pm
President Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor shows that empathy has won out over excellence in the White House. Sotomayor has sterling credentials: Princeton, Yale Law School, former prosecutor, and federal trial and appellate judge. But credentials do not an excellent justice make. Justice Souter, whom Sotomayor would replace, had an equally fine c.v., but turned out to be a weak force on the high court.

Obama had some truly outstanding legal intellectuals and judges to choose from—Cass Sunstein, Elena Kagan, and Diane Wood come immediately to mind. The White House chose a judge distinguished from the other members of that list only by her race. Obama may say he wants to put someone on the Court with a rags-to-riches background, but locking in the political support of Hispanics must sit higher in his priorities.

Sotomayor’s record on the bench, at first glance, appears undistinguished. She will not bring to the table the firepower that many liberal academics are asking for. There are no opinions that suggest she would change the direction of constitutional law as have Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, or Robert Bork and Richard Posner on the appeals courts. Liberals have missed their chance to put on the Court an intellectual leader who will bring about a progressive revolution in the law.

But conservatives should not be pleased simply because Sotomayor is not a threat to the conservative revolution in constitutional law begun under the Reagan administration. Conservatives should defend the Supreme Court as a place where cases are decided by a faithful application of the Constitution, not personal politics, backgrounds, and feelings. Republican senators will have to conduct thorough questioning in the confirmation hearings to make sure that she will not be a results-oriented voter, voting her emotions and politics rather than the law. One worrying sign is Sotomayor’s vote to uphold the affirmative action program in New Haven, CT, where the city threw out a written test for firefighter promotions when it did not pass the right number of blacks and Hispanics. Senators should ask her whether her vote in that case, which is under challenge right now in the Supreme Court (where I signed an amicus brief for the Claremont Center on Constitutional Jurisprudence), was the product of her “empathy” rather than the correct reading of the Constitution.

[HamdenRice]

1. Fuck You Yoo

You need to shut up, pack up your shit and get ready to be deported to the Hague.

[K Gardner]

26. Well, if we would imprison these War Criminals, they wouldn't have the audacity OR the

ability to continually run their mouths; so yes, the Hague would be appropriate for this scum as well as the rest.

[mod mom]

31. or simply Fuck Yoo!

:hi:

[joeybee12]

2. Oh, how I love he lumps Scalia and his lapdog Thomas together...

...yeah thomas is a keen mind.

[Canuckistanian]

Yeah, like Clarence Thomas was SOOOOO influential on the court

Has he uttered a single word in his entire time on the SC?

[rurallib]

14. Boy does that line on Thomas jump out.

I believe he averages @ 100 words total a year. I series.
I am fairly sure he has written a majority opinion. Not bad for - what? - 17 years?

[Canuckistanian]

32. Nice work if you can get it n/t

[targetpractice]

3. "But credentials do not an excellent justice make."

I thought this by John Yoo, but appears to be written by John Yoda.

Really, how can anyone take someone seriously who writes like that in 2009.

[sharp_stick]

8. LOL, nice find.

I missed that completely in my initial rage at having to read something that mental midget actually fucking wrote. If there is ANYBODY actually attending this assholes classes in Berkeley they should be stripped of any future degree for stupidity.

[targetpractice]

41. Hah!

I love your passion! I think that was the most dramatic reply I've ever received... I agreed with every word!

[izzybeans]

20. An un-indicted co-conspirator he is.

Very perceptive you are.

Spin this he must.

Showing, his "Cheney" is. :looks off into the middle distance:

[bluestateguy]

4. Why do I care what that North Korean apologist thinks?

nt

[tridim]

5. Unless someone is totured, Yoo is against it by default.

[CoffeeCat]

6. The audacity of poop...

I'm sorry, but no one really knew who this Yoo was, until he became infamous
for elevtating torture to a national pastime.

So, now he thinks he has the clout to come forward and give his opinion on a SCOTUS
nominee?

This is so outrageous. So brash!

This is like Charles Manson stepping up to the podium and doing a two-hour long press
conference on his SCOTUS preference.

Why isn't Yoo hiding under a desk somewhere in shame? The fact that he feels comfortable
enough to show his ugly mug and interject his opinion on important national matters--speaks
volumes about this country.

I'm ashamed...

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. Yoo really ought to be in prison. Anything he has to say ought to be rejected

as defective. Why UC Berkeley has that stupid bastard is a mystery to me.

[yourout]

9. Quite the predictable bunch the Pukes are.

[grantcart]

10. wow I just read Yoo's wikipedia page

I didn't realize that he is Peter Arnett's son in law.


That would be an interesting Thanksgiving dinner table.

[gkhouston]

13. Yeah, Yoo would be in danger of getting mistaken for the entree. n/t

[blogslut]

35. I am still waiting for Mr. Arnett to bring the smackdown on his son-in-law

Arnett was drummed out of the US press because he reported that the invasion of Iraq wasn't going according to plan. There a lot of people that owe him an apology.

[gkhouston]

11. Cut him some slack. He worked hard on this.

Last week Yoo had an intern compose one of these for every single one of Obama's probable picks. Deciding which talking point to vomit forth and when is probably how he supports himself these days.

[grantcart]

16. Now that he has been demoted to work at Chapman he has plenty of time to

do it himself.

[Botany]

12. Boy is Yoo full of shit

"Liberals have missed their chance to put on the Court an intellectual leader who will bring about a progressive revolution in the law."

Look torture-boy we have the votes in the senate, a President who is a Constitutional scholar, and time is on our side.

Stevens is 89, Scalia is 73 (and fat), Kennedy is 72, Thomas is 60, Ginsburg is 76, and Breyer is 70

Conservatives should defend the Supreme Court as a place where cases are decided by a faithful application of the Constitution, not personal politics, backgrounds, and feelings.

Ever hear of bush v Gore?


****************************

Yoo should be worried about keeping his standing to practice law and not being shipped off for a war crimes trial.

[Mass]

15. Excellence- What does Yoo know about excellence?\nt

[NYC_SKP]

17. You had at least four such letters written in advance.

All critical of whichever pick Obama would make.

[Bleacher Creature]

25. I had no such letters written!!!!!

Sorry, couldn't resist. :)

[NYC_SKP]

30. OMG.

I typed "you",,,, doh! :P

[oviedodem]

18. Republicans better be very very careful how they tread with this pick. They

are coming dangerously close to xenophobia here and if they want to regain power they need to watch their mouths. America is changing and the hispanic vote is becoming increasingly important.

If they lose it any more they will NEVER be in power again.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. But he's a constitutional scholar!

Just because you disagree with John Yoo, it doesn't mean he's stupid.

:crazy:

[Proud Liberal Dem]

21. Well, I guess if Yoo says so..............

:eyes:

[Thrill]

22. LOL. If Obama had picked Cass Sunstein the conservatives would be screaming

They would go nuts.

[Cha]

27. Exactly..they were ready to whine about

any of the picks and yoo acting like the ones he mentioned would be okay is a damn lie.

[MarjorieG]

23. So he talks of Conservative revolution. Thought supposed to be activist free, but admits agenda.

When the Conservatives continually vote against the individudals/people, whose last recourse before the courts, siding against the individual in favor of the powerful, that is also personal interpretation.

[Cha]

24. Well, that's yoo and turley who think

it's all about race and gender.

[omega minimo]

28. Is Yoo insane?

[Vattel]

29. Yoo is an idiot.

He is not, as some claim, a gifted but misguided scholar. He is incredibly dense. His argumentation in his book on war powers provides countless examples of fallacious reasoning. He is a dumb-ass. He publishes in top law reviews because the law review process is utterly corrupt. The student editors who decide what gets published typically have little expertise in most areas of the law, the review is not blind, and articles are chosen not on the basis of their quality but on the basis of the author's institution (Yoo is at UCBerkley), the author's credentials (Yoo clerked for Thomas), and other bad criteria. No one trained in argumentation would take Yoo's book seriously. He couldn't argue his way out of a paper bag.

[JayMusgrove]

33. I would like to personally water board this guy

on national TV.

See where he is after that........or maybe we should send him to GTMO, where most Republican appointees of Bush should spend the next 8 year, without charges, without court dates, and a few water board incidents every year until 2016.

[blogslut]

34. I think I get the jist of this whole "intellect" jazz

It's about keeping the law mired in language incomprehensible to the average person, thus making ivory tower types the keepers of the keys.

[TankLV]

36. Okaaaayyyyy....

Sounds like a piece of shit complaining about the way an expensive quality french perfume smells...

[ProSense]

37. War criminal posts at AEI blog. This is a for wingnuts only post. n/t

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

38. Why isn't this intellectually dishonest ambulatory turd

breaking rocks in Leavenworth? Seriously.

And what exactly has "Uncle" Thomas done to change the course of constitutional law other than jump when Fat Tony says "Frog!"

[AlexanderProgressive]

39. Mr.Torture has spoken n/t

[opihimoimoi]

40. Why is this WAR CRIMINAL STILL ON THE LOOSE??? He should be wearing ORANGE

[olegramps]

42. The Republican Party is the party of scum-bags.

Why in the hell doesn't the DOJ go after this class A-1 bastard and get him disbarred?

I am being to think that the Democrats are Heap Big Smoke and No Fire. When I worked for Obama, I really believed that he was for real CHANGE. That real change that I had in mind was bringing the people who are responsible for this sad condition that our country is in to account. There had better be an accounting or I will be skipping out the 2010 elections. Am I disappointed, hell yes!

What could be more important than the upholding the principle that every citzen is to be held accountable and that no one is above the law? You might as well allow the streets to be controlled by gangsters if we are not to hold those who we entrust with the very survial of the Republic to be held accountable.

Screw it, I am fed up.

[northernlights]

43. fuck yoo

"The White House chose a judge distinguished from the other members of that list only by her race."

In other words, all other things being equal, she's Hispanic. And your point is?

"There are no opinions that suggest she would change the direction of constitutional law as have Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court..."

Thank heavens for that. Scalia has taken the court in a horrendous direction. Thomas is a nice doggie following Scalia where he goes. Oh, and what was the constitutional basis for Gore versus Bush? That "the American people" can't wait a month or two to find out who they elected president, so we'll just have to choose for them?

"Liberals have missed their chance to put on the Court an intellectual leader who will bring about a progressive revolution in the law."

Um, actually, since she hasn't written any opinions that suggest whether or how she'll change the direction of consitutional law...we don't really *know* what she'll do, do we? Maybe, must maybe, she held those opinions for the job interview. Just call her the teflon nominee.

[Doctor_J]

44. How sad that the people of the great city of Berkeley

didn't swing this guy from a lamp post.