John Yoo’s Hypocrisy

They’ve been receiving considerable attention in the progressive blogosphere, but these quotes from John Yoo, circa 2000, are worth repeating for anyone who still doubts that he is nothing more than a shameless and unprincipled apologist for the Bush administration:

First, I think, in order to achieve their foreign policy goals, the Clinton Adminisitration has undermined the balance of powers that exist in foreign affairs, and have undermined principles of democratic accountability that executive branches have agreed upon well to the Nixon Administration. The second thing is that the Clinton Administration has displayed a fundmental disrespect for the rule of law. Not in the sense that they don’t make legal arguments to defend their positions, but the legal arguments are so outragous, they’re so incredible, that they actually show, I think, a disrespect for the idea of law, by showing how utterly manipulable it is. And the the third thing is a matter of consistency. I think one of the things the rule of law demands is that people be consistent, and that institutions be consistent in their legal positions. And I think the Clinton Administration, as I’ll discuss in a moment, has been wildly inconsistent. It has gone to the point of disavowing previous executive branch opinions, and when it does things that it finds so inconvenient legally that it overturns too much law, it just doesn’t say anything at all, and goes ahead and does what it intends to do anyway.

And this:

President Clinton exercised the powers of the imperial presidency to the utmost in the area in which those powers are already at their height — in our dealings with foreign nations. Unfortunately, the record of the administration has not been a happy one, in light of its costs to the Constitution and the American legal system. On a series of different international relations matters, such as war, international institutions, and treaties, President Clinton has accelerated the disturbing trends in foreign policy that undermine notions of democratic accountability and respect for the rule of law.

Hat-Tip: Lawyers, Guns, and Money.