NYT Mag on Torture-Memo Author John Yoo: Aw, Ain't He Cute?
Uttered in any location with a view of San Francisco Bay, the name of John Yoo tends to reduce people to convulsive hand-wringing. Yoo, a professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, has been a frequent target of liberal protesters and activists -- many of them students -- because of his association with the Bush administration's controversial interrogation policies. As a Justice Department lawyer, Yoo authored an infamous set of "torture memos" justifying the harsh treatment of suspected terrorists.
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| But also sorta cute? |
In fact, one could make the case that Solomon lets her subject dial up the affability a tad high for the interests of a serious reading public, comparing him in a question to former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and cracking jokes about his psychiatrist parents. "She was much closer to the president than I ever was," Yoo quips in response to the Lewinsky prod.
Yoo also gets off scot-free on the question of his responsibility for the shameful practice of torture by American officials under the last administration, peddling what is by now a shopworn excuse: that he was a lawyer ethically serving his client, the U.S. government. (In fact, many legal experts assert that Justice Department lawyers had a duty to deliver an impartial judgment on the legality of proposed interrogation practices, and put the brakes on hot-to-trot administration hardliners.)
You can read the story here.
Photo | Fibonacci Blue
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