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★★★★★
The Constitution as an Obstacle
John Yoo is a serious man. He understands that the Constitution is so precious that sometimes you have to destroy it in order the save it. To him, the Bill of Rights is a bunker on Omaha Beach, a threatening obstacle that has to be taken and burned in order to make our nation more pleasing to Our Dark Lord and Savior, Dick Cheney. Yoo wrote this book to justify such destruction.
He served this nation during very dark times. Our Great and Glorious Crusade Against The Unbelievers was underway, but Leader Bush was still stumbling, searching for a justification for His grand adventure. He needed political cover, and he needed it immediately. He summoned the Dark Lord from his undisclosed location and pleaded with him to provide it.
Cheney knew what had to be done. Saddam had to be tied to Al Qaeda. As a serious man, he understood that if evidence of such a tie was unavailable, it had to be created. Detainees would need to be coerced into making false confessions. It would require torture, an act that was considered unconstitutional at the time. Cheney turned to another serious man, Yoo--a man who would later tell Congress that the President can legally order a suspect to be burned alive or that his children be tortured--to write a justification for ignoring the Fifth and Eighth Amendments.
Yoo served the Dark Lord well by not only justifying torture but by destroying the Fourth Amendment to allow domestic spying as well.
I'm giving this book five stars--not because it is well argued or well written (it isn't) but because, like Yoo, I want to help shape our nation according to Lord Cheney's righteously Stalinesque vision.
It would be a much better book if Yoo added a few things. Serious men (and all serious people are men or at least have adam's apples) would support the use of suicide bombers in the defence of freedom. Surely, the College Republicans would eagerly volunteer to send the brown, black and poor on such missions. Suicide bombing needs a champion to advocate it as policy. Yoo would be perfect in that role yet he remains silent. Why is that?
The book would also be much more interesting if Yoo described what turned him into what he's become. Was it a frequent application of an Oxo Good Grips Brushed Stainless Steel Turner to the soft sweet flesh of his behind? Was it drinking non-fluoridated water? Does he deny his essence to women?
Perhaps he can add a chapter for the next printing.
January 2010 · Books