Political Skullduggery

If John Yoo is so enamored with police state governance, he is welcome to emigrate to North Korea and work for the government there.

However, the North Korean dictatorship may be reluctant to embrace Yoo's theories of law. Kim Jong-Il may be the object of a "personality cult", but Yoo's interpretation of "supreme leadership" would even make Kim uneasy.

For generations, civics students have learned that the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Yesterday, the man who built the legal underpinnings of the Bush administration's terrorism strategy revised the curriculum.

John Yoo, the former Justice Department official whose writings justified the administration's treatment of military prisoners and the National Security Agency eavesdropping program, announced that Congress's warmaking powers are just a figment of the "popular imagination."

"Almost all the prominent scholars who believe that Congress should play a prominent role in foreign policy look to the 'declare war' clause as the source of Congress's power," Yoo said, 10 minutes into his talk at the Heritage Foundation. "They appeal to a very common-sense reading of the declare-war clause," he continued, and "I think in the popular imagination, declaring war does seem to equate with making war or starting war."

That is, indeed, the prevailing view. But it is not Yoo's. "I don't think if you look at the constitutional text carefully that it carries that expansive reach," he asserted. "Note that the declare-war clause uses the word 'declare.' It doesn't use the word 'begin,' 'make,' 'authorize,' 'wage' or 'commence' war."

Thus did Yoo reduce Congress's warmaking authority to a ceremonial role, much like its authority to declare a national Boy Scout recognition month...

Yoo has not mellowed in his view that presidential powers are near absolute in wartime. Twice yesterday, he said the president has a "choice" about whether to follow the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- the law that, critics say, President Bush evaded by allowing warrantless wiretaps. FISA "says, 'Look, you have a choice,' " Yoo said. "If you work through FISA, then you can use the fruits of those searches in criminal prosecution." By contrast, if a president "doesn't follow FISA and still collects the information, it's doubtful it will be admitted. That's a choice presidents have to make."

When a defendant gets dodgy legal advice, it doesn't mean that he escapes the legal consequences of his actions.

In a less fanciful country, the administration would have to face the fact that they should have hired less obsequious counsel.