Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Law Students Blogs -> Nuts & Boalts

Law Students

: Nuts & Boalts

Yoo-Hoo!

President Obama (don't those words make a lovely couple?) has ordered the DOJ and OLC to side with the defense in Jose Padilla v. John Yoo (pdf). Next week they'll be filing a motion to dismiss the suit.

I think this is the right move but I also think it's awkward, for two reasons. First, Obama?s pick to head the OLC, Dawn Johnsen, wrote an article in Slate last year calling one of Yoo?s memos ?plainly flawed? and his defense of it ?irresponsibly and dangerously false.? Now she's been instructed to defend him. I don't know about you, but I hate it when that kind of thing happens to me.

Second, it's apt to piss off the hefty contingent of left-leaning voters who confuse our President with a Messiah by forgetting that he is constrained practical realities. Right or wrong, it's hardly indisputable that it's a good idea to encourage litigation against government agents acting within their discretion and official capacity, on behalf of what they perceive to be the national interest. Nor is it a wise investment in the future vitality of the current administration to allow civil suits to proceed against the former one. In other words, it's entirely possible for Bush and Obama, both being Presidents, will be common creatures in the face of common problems. Principled or not, this is reality.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on January 29, 2009 (boomark / email).