No one could have predicted this would happen. John Yoo and John Bolton, in the NY Times, discuss the need to limit executive authority.
Up next, David Addington and Dick Cheney write in the Washington Post on the need to reject Unitary Executive theory.
I knew these wankers would do this, I just didn’t expect it immediately and so brazenly. The balls on these people.
TenguPhule
Balls nothing. This is pure gall.
Why the fuck are these people not in prison yet?
Notorious P.A.T.
It doesn’t matter. We are doomed, anyway:
"News reports say that Democrats hope to pass an economic plan with broad bipartisan support."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05krugman.html?_r=1
cleek
I’m ever upper class high society
God’s gift to ballroom notoriety
And I always fill my ballrooms
The event is never small
The social pages say I got the biggest balls of all
Bon Scott didn’t die. he just went crazy and grew a molestache.
4tehlulz
Goddamn liberal media, always giving a platform for leftist like Bolton and Y…
Svensker
The balls on these people.
See, if we’d only crushed their balls when they were children — as they themselves suggested! — we wouldn’t have this problem.
Zifnab
I really do love how conservatives get incredibly conservative the moment they leave power. And they do it on the most foolish issues.
Black Helicopters! UN Troops invading Kansas and Alabama! Dey gonna take ur gunz, ur monies, and yur women-folk!
I’ll give Yoo and Bolton points. After years of advising that the United States tell the rest of the world to piss off, they’re at least holding to consistency. They get to paint Obama and Clinton as appeasers to third-world dictators and charity cases while upholding the "US doesn’t need anybody cause we’re always right" mentality. And they get to do it by demanding that Senate Republicans receive increased filibuster power to hang over the President’s head at every opportunity.
Given McConnell’s trigger-happy filibuster Senate, there’s really no question what the GOP would even do with such a power. Really, Yoo and Bolton just re-raise the question people have been asking since Dems captured the Legislature in ’06. What do you do with a minority party dead set on pissing on everything in sight without regard for national, party, or even personal well-being? The fact that Yoo and Bolton are asking for additional powers explicitly to abuse them seems to tell me the GOP has no intention of changing course over the next few years. So what do you do with these national power brokers?
Jen R
Big as the wheels on tractors
Big as the golden arches
Big as the Golden Gate Bridge
Big as the state of Kansas
Big as Mars and Jupiter
Big as the swing on Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods
I am posting Dan Bern lyrics in lieu of going on a rampage. I’m sure you all understand.
jibeaux
OMFG.
What’s next, Vladimir Putin’s op-ed proposing that the Medvedev regime should really start pursuing those democratic and free speech reforms that so many have called for in recent years?
Interrobang
Holy effing crap! Hold on to your persistence of memory, folks, because they’re going to be claiming they were for this all along. Me, I felt the universe as we know it lurch 90 degrees upleft. I heard my dictionary change, and it’s at home, and I’m at work. When I go home and look up the word "chutzpah" now, I’m going to see Yoo and Bolton’s pictures (yeuccch)…
DougJ
Next Bolton will write about the need to limit the mustache sizes of public officials.
ed
I knew these wankers would do this, I just didn’t expect it immediately and so brazenly. The balls on these people.
Oh, come on. When was the last time you said to yourself, "No way, they’d never do…in a million years…" did they go out and do just that?
Sister Machine Gun of Mild Harmony
Maybe they were REALLY saying that the executive branch should be more limited in its abilities to persecute war criminals.
Punchy
John, you two really ought to get together and discuss.
par4
Mussaref on subordination of the military to civilian control
bootlegger
How about the unmitigated gall to claim that such treaties-by-majority-or-fiat were o-tay if it was about markets and economics, i.e. making the fat cats plumper. But when it comes to the environment? Oh nos, not that! Fuckin’ bastards.
Not My Fault
OK. Yeah. These guys are epic assholes, and the balls that it took for them to write this is (are?) amazing even after the last eight years.
That said, limits on executive authority would be a good thing. Signing statements would be a good place to start. Those things are pure totalitarianism.
If Obama could refrain from crossing his fingers when signing legislation, and explicitly void all existing signing statements, while all three branches work out a set of rules to make signing statements an impeachable (capital?) offense, then our we would be a bit more like a democratic republic.
bayville
Cheney Tomorrow:
carpeicthus
I would really love it if Obama imprisoned Yoo for the rest of his life without charges. For the irony, if nothing else.
Xecky Gilchrist
I knew these wankers would do this, I just didn’t expect it immediately and so brazenly.
Me neither – I expected the inauguration to happen first.
Dreggas
Not surprising in the least.
Of course these asshats will have the support of the new Red Army
Face
I fully expect Bush’s pardon for Yoo, in the "Reason for Pardon" line, will state "Cuz he wroted some stuff".
The pardons will be extensive, yet halirious.
Xenos
@Dreggas: That will have me giggling for days. "Lightning Bolt!"
Reverend Dennis
How about this:
This from a member of the crowd that enabled Bush’s ruinous spending without cavil every step of the way. And the delusional little bastard thinks that anyone still believes in Republican bi-partisanship or that Republican Senators represent half the country.
bootlegger
@Dreggas: Now that’s some funny shit!
Napoleon
@Reverend Dennis:
When I heard that what really stood out is the "we represent 50% of America" BS. They have 41 seats, and they tend to be from smaller states then the Dems represent. If they hit 40% of America I would be amazed.
Reverend Dennis
@Dreggas:
Praise the lord and pass the Cheetos.
Tsulagi
Yeah, that’s pretty rich coming from those two twits who spent the past eight years thumping their man-breasts “I’m saying that when the President does it, that means it’s not illegal!”
That quote is from Nixon, a binging DFH ACLUer compared to these retarded asswipes.
I see from the opinion piece both Bolton and Yoo are now warehoused at the American Enterprise Institute “think” tank. What is that, an Idiots in Waiting repository?
bootlegger
@Tsulagi: At least their ideas will remain in the tank for now since they have no access to political power.
Scott
I think it frustrates me more that the NYT publishes this stuff from Bolten and Yoo and then doesn’t bother to remind its readers that they believed exactly the opposite when the Republicans were in charge.
Ohhh, but doing that would involve the Times standing up to the GOP, and we can’t have that, it’s just not done in polite society…
Dreggas
@Reverend Dennis:
They’re the Judean Peoples front LOL.
Montysano
@Reverend Dennis: Rev. Dennis beat me to it, re: that onerous troll Mitch McConnell.
Well, it worked so well these last 8 years, why change now?
/Firesign Theatre
SGEW
More upcoming columns from outgoing Bush Administration figures:
– "War By Other Means: How Increased Diplomacy Can Replace Armed Intervention" by Donald Rumsfeld
– "Supporting The Wall Of Separation Between Church And State" by John Ashcroft
– "Questioning Your Boss: Why Vigorous Dissent Is An Essential Management Tool" by David Addington
– "Torture Is Always Wrong" by John Yoo
– "Barack Obama’s Excellent Vacation: How Our President-Elect Spends Too Much Time Off, and Not Enough Time On" by George W. Bush
– "Ten Easy Tips To Improve Your Memory" by Alberto Gonzales
– "Dirty Politics Equals Dirty Governance: Why Political Campaigns Should Embrace The Golden Rule" by Karl Rove
– "I Love Everyone" by Dick Cheney
Tsulagi
@Dreggas:
LOL! I saw that yesterday on RedState. I’m telling ya, there is no bottom in that rabbit hole of comically stupid that Erick has been falling down for months.
I’m just hoping they release videos of the patriots in RedState BCT exercises. Zero doubt they’d make those side straddle hop challenged Iraqis look like Delta.
The Moar You Know
I read it. I think my brain is now bleeding. These people are fucking unbelievable. It’s not that I didn’t expect this, but even still, when confronted with such brazen…fuck, I don’t even have a word for what this is. Goddamn shitcock. I pride myself on being a reasonable and peaceful person, but if there was such a thing as a just God, He would set their testicles on fire with WP for this.
4tehlulz
@Tsulagi: I would bet 10bux that half of them would have Naruto headbands.
Reverend Dennis
The media in general doesn’t seem to have much interest in challenging the lies from Bushco. This from "Face the Nation" yesterday:
Bob Shieffer uttered not a peep of disagreement. No mention of the intelligence that was right and ignored, no mention of the conclusions of Hans Blix and the UN weapons inspectors. The new meme is that Bushco was misled by bad intelligence – not that they had lover’s nuts for a war with Iraq. Shieffer, WaPo, et al, will let these monkeys get away with lying and dissembling now because they willingly did so in the past. No sense embarrassing oneself by dredging up what a shitty job you did in the first place.
Ash Can
These two assholes can go fuck themselves with Garden Weasels. Having said that, I’d prefer to see this shit, which we all agree was/is inevitable, appear in public sooner, when the criminality of the Bush train wreck is still fresh in people’s memories, rather than later.
What would be worst of all is if this shit goes unchallenged. What Scott describes above would be great, and IMO not out of the question. IIRC, it’s not uncommon for op-ed rebuttals to be published on subsequent days. In any event, I’ll be watching closely for some equally public pushback against these two shitheels.
gnomedad
… and in his memoirs, W’s ghost-writer will discuss the importance of accurate intelligence, sufficient troop strength for an occupation, and a clear exit strategy.
Zifnab
@Tsulagi:
Think of it like the UAW jobs bank, but for conservative intellectuals. Really, I’m just waiting for some Senator (preferably Corker, for irony value) to propose we engage in an intellectual bailout to shore up these bankrupt idea factories.
Joshua Norton
Up next, George W. Bush on the evils of deficit spending.
Stooleo
New York Times Op-Ed schedule for the month of January:
Hired Guns (The Dangers of Political Litmus Tests and Loyalty Oaths for new Hires at the Department of Justice). by Alberto Gonzales
Can’t We all Just Get Along? (The Obama Administration Better Pay Heed to International Treaties and Reject Unilateralism). by Richard Cheney
How to Become a Better Listener (To be an Effective President, One Must Listen to Conflicting View Points). by George W. Bush.
Zifnab
@gnomedad:
Memoirs nothing. These were the fundamental platforms of the Bush ’00 run for President. Maybe you’ve forgotten, but we’d become engaged in a massive endless quagmire in Kosovo and then-Governor GW was making the case against invasion purely on ideological grounds.
The next 8 years are going to only get more hilarious as we bookend Bush-era policy with Obama and Clinton.
Ash Can
@SGEW: I’m waiting for Alberto Gonzales to publish an op-ed bemoaning the politicization of the DoJ.
(ETA: h/t to Stooleo, who clearly beat me to it.)
PaulW
If Yoo is still working as a professor in U.C., I think it’s high time the faculty vote him out because he is so damn inconsistent in promoting legal theory. Well, that and his being a goddamn war criminal.
I’d love to see these guys anywhere outside of the United States after January 21st.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Stooleo:
Is this the same Gonzales who is a casualty in the War on Terrah?
Jay B.
Hey, I was against excessive executive power before the people who supported it last month turned against it. Can I haz riting job for Times now?
Jen R
@Jay B.:
That’s because you hate America. No job for you!
Shinobi
LIGHTNING BOLT!
How do you think they deal with that cognitive dissonance? I would love to peek into their minds and see just how much they have to delude themselves. It makes MY brain hurt, theirs must be in agony.
p.a.
One of the things keeping me going is the fervent hope there is more payback than just losing elections awaiting these fucks in the future.
serenity now…serenity now…
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Shinobi:
Sadly, no. Their conscience is clear, they sleep the sleep of the innocent newborn. They’re not engaging in politics; they’re practicing a religion.
Paul L.
Looks like the Democrats also have BIG BRASS BALLS.
Pelosi Seeks House Minority ‘Bill of Rights’
Nancy Pelosi: Back to the good old days
Redhand
Especially Yoo, I mean, Holy God, Mr. POTUS-has-unitary-executive-power-to-torture himself.
Does this moon-faced schmuck have any sense of decency, not to mention irony, at all? Does he honestly think anybody gives a sh*t about his "legal opinions" on presidential power after the damage he’s already done?
It’s enough to make you heave, literally.
Original Lee
@SGEW: COTD, and an early contender for COTW!
Shinobi
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
I don’t know, I think religion’s rules generally stay the same. Politics is where you get to change the rules when you’re a big loser. (Or Winner)
But you can justify it to yourself by saying the other side would do the same thing.
Karen
First off, I don’t think any of them will even see time in a court of law, much less jail time. Before BushCo is done, they will all have their pardons for whatever little reason that pea brain can conjure up. Plus, everyone else is too set on "moving forward", which can guarantee that history will repeat itself.
As for Yoo & Bolton coming out like they are: They are worried they’ll be tarred with the BushCo scum, so are busy trying to clean themselves off. There will be more. It will be more rediculous.
John, pet Tunch & calm down.
Zifnab
Uh… those rules didn’t pass, Paul. They were flatly ignored by then-acting Speaker Hastert. Republicans were proclaiming "permanent majority" right up through 2005.
And calling out the "Bend Over For Bush" Congressional Dems of ’02 – ’08 for having "Big Brass Balls" is a joke. We fucking WISH they had said balls. Dems haven’t shown any serious balls in the last thirty years. Pelosi’s "Sternly Worded Letter" kindly requesting then-Majority Republicans to pay attention to them is a case-in-point.
qwerty42
Is Yoo concerned he might be charged as a war criminal? Bolton is just a malignant nut.
Tony J
All they’re saying is that since gutless liberals have been beating their weedy chests for years demanding that limits should be put on the authority of the President, it would be plain old hypocrisy and partisan politics for them to to oppose conservative suggestions for limiting the authority of the President just because he happens to be a Democrat.
In other words, they’re not rejecting the positions they’ve held over the last eight years, far from it. They’re just saying that because Democrats opposed these positions when they put power into the hands of a Republican president, they shouldn’t adopt those positions themselves now that they’ve got that power in their own hands.
Shorter – If it’s bad for a Republican president to reject limits on his power, it’s bad for a Democrat president to do the same.
At least, that’s how it looks to me via my Wingnut Lens of Rhetorical Spin. When I take it off the whole piece makes my brain hurt too.
jonas
Why this letter was not signed from their jail cell in the Hague is the most disturbing thing about it. On another level, however, it just goes to show how all their ideological posturing over the past 8 years was just that — political posturing. They do not, and never had, the courage of their convictions. The War on Terror, the Unitary Executive — all that — was by and large an attempt to aggrandize the political fortunes of the Republican Party. As soon as the political winds change, well, those positions can bend to accommodate a minority status and attack a Democratic president. All in a day’s work for these craven bastards.
Also, be on the lookout this week for Hugh Hewitt, RedState, Instaputz and the others to rail against court-ordered ends to election recounts, scream about how "every vote should be counted," and all the other stuff that they asserted was liberal whining back when Bush’s election, and not Al Franken’s, was at stake. Idiots.
Jay B.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation.
I can only hope this is true. It would be the first evidence in 3 years that Democrats have any balls at all.
Also: Suck it up douchebag. If you were "Democrats should have some say" in the glory days of Klepto rule (2002 – 2006), then I apologize. However, if you were a typical Republican, I have less than no sympathy.
Finally: Democrats represent an overwhelming majority of voters, it’s way past fucking time they started acting like it.
The Moar You Know
@Paul L.: Don’t like it? Next time do a better job winning elections, fucktard.
Get back to work, Paul. Those black strippers won’t rape themselves, they need your help.
Joe Buck
Just wait until they explain the great power of the important office of the ex-presidency. Ex-presidents must have unlimited power to keep their secrets from current presidents, and must have total control of any papers they generated, because otherwise Bad Things will happen. Also, current presidents must follow all rules set up by ex-presidents, forever and ever, so that everyone can count on consistent policies.
The key is that we live in a center-right country, therefore leftists like Obama must be prevented at all costs from doing anything. If Republicans have to make up arguments to achieve this, the op-ed pages will be happy to oblige them in getting the word out.
nick
Definition of Chutzpah:
A boy kills his father and mother. When brought before a judge for his crime, he throws himself upon the mercy of the court as an orphan.
robertdsc
I’m numbed by all the stupid. Too much, too much.
Arun
What irked me was that these two shared the page with Kristol in the physical paper. Except for a slim Krugman column, 80% of the NYT Op-Ed page looked like a right-wing warmonger gangbang.
I don’t know why these people are received in civilized society, much less given such a platform.
MikeL
On the subject of Big Brass Balls – guess who’s giving away personal info, after complaining about others doing it? Michelle Malkin of course. Name, account number, transit info, the works.
Dan
Inexplicable. There’s still two weeks left. I was expecting this op-ed to appear on the 20th.
Kirk
About that rules re-write… as I understand it, the rule is one the Republicans got added when they lost the majority. It wasn’t (again allegedly) available for the Democrats when they were in the minority.
Simply stated, it allows a minority to bottle legislation for long periods of time by forcing it to be returned to the original committee for reconsideration. The loophole is going to be closed by requiring a majority to approve the return for reconsideration.
So the whining is because the loophole created by Republicans for Republicans is being closed. Pardon me if I’m not impressed.
Gus
PaulL, did you really just link to Michelle Malkin’s site and think that anyone here wouldn’t laugh at you?
tofubo
yes,
big. brass.
balls.blogs.http://bigbrassblog.com/index.php?itemid=2419
Paul L.
@The Moar You Know:
They don’t need my help. They can just lie about the rape like they did in the past.
Sue
I’m sorry, but I did see this coming: as soon as a Democrat was elected President, Republican support for unlimited executive authority because one of theirs wouldn’t be wielding it. It’s not shock that they’re doing this, it would be a shock if they had not. It’s hypocritical and intellectually dishonest, but still you had to see it coming.