Yoo Said It

by tristero

If facts mattered, and they haven’t for a very long time, this would be among the very stupidest things printed in a major newspaper in the last five years. And that is saying a lot, believe you me.

A reinvigorated presidency enrages President Bush’s critics, who seem to believe that the Constitution created a system of judicial or congressional supremacy. Perhaps this is to be expected of the generation of legislators that views the presidency through the lens of Vietnam and Watergate. But the founders intended that wrongheaded or obsolete legislation and judicial decisions would be checked by presidential action, just as executive overreaching is to be checked by the courts and Congress.

The changes of the 1970’s occurred largely because we had no serious national security threats to United States soil, but plenty of paranoia in the wake of Richard Nixon’s use of national security agencies to spy on political opponents.

Both Eschaton and Josh have weighed in on the unspeakable historical illiteracy of this remark. I would like to add a few things to what they said.

I remember the ’70’s very well thank you very much, and while the USSR was a threat, and so was the Middle East – I well remember the gas lines – the most serious threat of all to the security of the United States was the imperial presidency of Richard M. Nixon. Many of us who do recall how dangerous he was, including Krugman himself, now agree that Nixon was a piker compared to Bush.

But there’s something more important here than proving Yoo wrong, which any highschool kid with access to a stack of history books, or the Internets could do in five minutes.

Yoo knows he’s lying here and he doesn’t give a damn what you or I think. Why? Because he knows the New York Times has anointed him worthy of space on their editorial page and all that matters is that they print what he writes. It’s the same con as “Intelligent Design” creationism: you gain mainstream cred merely by being included in the debate. And Yoo’s little stunt is all of a piece with the far-right contempt for normal American citizens, not to mention reality. The kind of mentality that would assert there were no serious national security threats during the ’70’s is the same mentality that plants a male hooker among the Whiite House press corps to fluff the press secretary (and at least once, Bush) when the questions get too tough.

The extent of sheer contempt for the people of America these people show never fails to take my breath away. They truly hate Americans, and American values. And these monarchy-loving assholes, these total losers who are literally smirking at the presumed ignorance of the people they dare to lead, these are populists?