I'm hard pressed to imagine why John Yoo expects to be taken seriously with missives like these.
John Yoo, the George W. Bush-era Justice Department lawyer who penned so-called "Torture memos" authorizing controversial interrogation techniques, accused the president Friday of holding a "radical vision of executive power" and usurping the Constitution with his recently enacted policy to stop deporting some young undocumented immigrants.
"Obama's order has pushed the executive power beyond all constitutional limits," Yoo wrote in a Fox News op-ed posted Friday, adding later that it appeared to be a political move to shore up the Latino vote ahead of the election. "Worried about Hispanic support for his re-election ... Obama simply decided to unilaterally enact his own legislation."
I see. So, in Yoo's mind, if a president authorizes torture, that's fine. If a president uses his or her discretion to defer deportations of immigrants who've spent most of their lives in the United States, and who entered the nation illegally through no fault of their own, that's an outrageous abuse of the law.
I wonder whether Mitt Romney would like to comment on who's right, the president or Yoo. Perhaps someone can ask him.
