Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Balkinization

Legal Commentary

: Balkinization

Feithian Humor

By Jack M. Balkin

Whilst skimming through Doug Feith's new apologia in the bookstore today, I ambled across these howlers, all of which are found in the small handful of pages Feith devotes to questions of detention and interrogation. Which is the most audacious?

"I saw the Geneva Conventions as a high-water mark of civilization." (p.39) [Pages 162-165 then present Feith himself as the stalwart defender of the Geneva Conventions during the early 2002 debates within the Administration.]

"Rumsfeld liked to cite the United States Constitution and often lectured his subordinates on scrupulous obedience to the law." (p.161)

[Referring to Abu Ghraib]: "Despite Rumsfeld's astute forebodings about becoming the world's jailer, he was not able to head the problems off." (p.165)

"The Administration, without controversy, had from the outset recognized [the Geneva Conventions] were applicable in Iraq."

Full post as published by Balkinization on April 16, 2008 (boomark / email).