By Andrew Cohen | January 18, 2008
Former Justice Department official John Yoo, author of our nation's most ill-conceived and damaging terror-law policies, wants your sympathy. He's being sued in civil court by former "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla, who alleges that Yoo was behind his designation as an "enemy combatant" and the torture he endured while in military custody...
This is an ironic position for the man who practically invented "lawfare" as a tool against terrorists. Yoo has written relentlessly about the need for the executive branch to push beyond heretofore recognized legal limits in pursuing terrorists. He has advocated in favor of expanded presidential power -- even greater than the great power the Bush administration has taken for itself since Sept. 11, 2001. And now he claims he is shocked -- shocked! -- that he is the subject of an aggressive, almost daring, lawsuit by one of his former targets...
This guy's bright ideas brought international scorn to the United States, begat Abu Ghraib, and have tied up Congress and the courts in terror law disputes for years (with no end in sight). Along with vice presidential aid David Addington, Yoo is primarily responsible for virtually all of the legal missteps and overreaches since the Twin Towers fell. And now he wants you to consider him a victim. Oh, and if, understandably, you aren't game to go down that road, he wants you to be on his side anyway, because he's fighting for people in government who aren't as fortunate as he is.
"My situation is better than most," writes Yoo, "since I am a lawyer with many lawyer friends (that is not the oxymoron it seems).... But what about the soldiers, agents and officers who have to respond to the next 9/11 or foreign threat? They will have to worry about personal liability, hiring lawyers.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/benchconference/2008/01/dont_cry_for_john_yoo.html
