The Yoo memo is out
And it’s just as awful as predicted. Read Kevin Drum’s take. Bottom line:
Basically, the president can authorize any action at all as commander-in-chief in wartime. Congress can’t bind him, treaties can’t bind him, and the courts can’t bind him. The scope of power the memos suggest is, almost literally, absolute. And since this is a war without end, the grant of power is also without end.
And a very interesting point:
As we all know, this memo was eventually rescinded. So in a sense it’s moot. But Marty Lederman asks a good question: now that we know what was in the memo, what justification was there for classifying it in the first place? It wouldn’t have been moot in 2003, and there was nothing in it that compromised national security either then or now. The only thing it compromised was the president’s desire not to have to defend his own policies — policies that led directly to the abuses at Abu Ghraib, among others.
