John Choon Yoo (born June 10, 1967) is an American attorney, former U.S. Justice Department official, Berkeley law professor, writer of memos, foremost authority on routing the U.S. Constitution, alleged war criminal, and an all-around good person. It is important to note however that—though it contradicts all rational reason—in this article, "an all-around good person" has been redefined narrowly to mean "a dick."
Yoo is an eminent scholar of the document known as the U.S. Constitution, though this refers specifically to an edition of it that is missing several amendments and has been integrated with entries from Vice President Dick Cheney's bedtime dream journal.
Having devoted his life to the common dick practice of redefining words to mean something different and more convenient, Yoo, during the course of one business day, redefined "acceptable behavior for a civilized nation" to "pretty much anything up to the reenactment of an Eli Roth movie."
Yoo's work is chiefly responsible for the supposed legal justification the Bush administration asserted for the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques," which is like a crazy corporate marketing-speak term for when the vendor fake drowns the consumer.
In his professional world, Yoo's work has caused him to stand out as a shining dick, which, considering this is the legal community we're talking about, is a major achievement in and of itself.
Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 White House
3 Torture Memos
4 Oh and also
5 Trivia
6 Free time
[edit]Early life
Yoo emigrated as an infant from South Korea and lived out the South Korean-American dream of going to an Ivy League school whilst probably enduring constant self-flagellation. Yoo attended exceptional institution/dick factory Harvard University followed by Yale Law School, during which time that he was probably that pain in the ass kid who argues every wrong answer on every quiz or test he's ever taken.
After law school, Yoo became a clerk for several prominent judges, including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in whose office "tasteful humor amongst professionals" has been narrowly redefined to mean "the act of placing the hair of one colleague's genital region upon the soda of another." [1]
[edit]White House
In 2001, Yoo went to work at the Office of Legal Counsel in the White House. Though merely a junior aide, Yoo's work, particularly on torture and civil liberties, had immediate influence.
With the war on terror increasing in complexity, President George W. Bush did the same thing most other rich, white kids who buy their way into Ivy league colleges without the necessary academic skills have done when they are in over their head: got the Asian kid to figure it out for him.
Both General Colin Powell and his Chief of Staff, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, have opposed Yoo's legal opinions and justifications, though their opinions on torture and interrogation should obviously be approached with trepidation as they spent their youth serving honorably in the U.S. military and not squabbling over multiple-choice questions in New England.
[edit]Torture Memos
While at the White House, Yoo authored a series of notorious memos that other people put their names on. In them, Yoo developed newer and narrower definitions for the concepts of "torture" and "habeas corpus" as well as, not to mention, the terms "ethics," "morals," and (from the look of him) "a modest lunch."
Yoo advocated the use of "enhanced interrogation," which sounds new and cutting-edgey, but is actually very old and cutting-off-air-supply-y.
Previously, the definition of torture was pretty clear to everyone who spoke English. However Yoo, being a lawyer, speaks a dialect of English called "lawyer-speak" or, as it is known to most Americans, "complete bullshit." Yoo claimed the word "torture" actually referred only to the use of those techniques leading to organ failure and death, which suggests—among many things—that Yoo is in possession of the creepiest dictionary anyone has ever come across.
Yoo principally authored the Bybee Memo, which, in addition to listing acceptable torture techniques, went so far as to say that acts deemed "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" can also be technically legal, thereby absolving both CIA interrogators as well as the producers of The Cougar.
Hand in hand with such work were Yoo's arguments for refuting the Geneva Convention. Again, Yoo practiced the legal tactic wherein one claims the rules don't exist so that one can't be subject to them. Though difficult for everyone else to find in most international law textbooks, this protocol seems to have been easily located and memorized by the entire Justice Department in the Bush Administration.
To make such claims, Yoo has strongly advocated an extreme form of the Unitary Executive theory—suggesting that during wartime the president is subject to few if any international or domestic laws—though most of Yoo's opinions on the subject appear to be plagiarized from the minutes of a Cobra Command meeting.
Yoo later defended these memos by arguing that no one else was supposed to see them, which calls to mind the old aphorism: if you waterboard John Yoo in the woods, is there a convoluted theory you can learn at Yale Law school that will make you care?
[edit]Oh and also
Yoo was partly responsible for establishing the legality of warrantless wiretaps.
Unfortunately these now infamous wiretaps went sort of unnoticed at the time because, while many Americans enjoyed the fourth amendment, most would argue that after the first two and the prohibition one, they really all start to blend together.
Though the Justice Department was filled with numerous bright legal minds, no one seemed to realize that there might be something questionable about listening to people's phone calls with no cause or justification. Interestingly, this whole warrantless wiretap ordeal could have been avoided had Yoo's memos been properly vetted by a true constitutional scholar or, say, a middle school American History teacher.
[edit]Trivia
In June 2008, Yoo "answered questions" before congress about the torture memos, though it is important to recognize that Yoo redefined the term "answer questions" to mean "not answer questions." And also "argue over the meanings of other common words that everybody already knows the meaning of."
Spanish judges and lawyers have launched an investigation into Yoo's alleged war crimes, meaning that Yoo has even managed to infuriate a country so easygoing that it has to take a three hour nap after lunch just to make it through the workday.
Notably, while Yoo has argued that he and President Bush has the right to violate as many 200 year old liberties as they please without answering to the American people, he has vocally and publicly argued the exact opposite in regards to Bill Clinton getting a beej.
Yoo is currently a visiting professor at Chapman University School of Law, which offers a joint JD/MFA law program in film production, meaning that, appropriately, Yoo now teaches at a University that trains lawyers who want to produce expensive works of fiction.
[edit]Free time
Interestingly, Yoo is an active member of the Federalist Society, which favors an originalist interpretation of the Constitution.
It is currently not known in which of the Federalist papers James Madison expressed that it was a good idea to find loopholes in everything he and the founding fathers wrote to help justify torturing people. It's likely that even the King of England would have found such behavior to be strange and excessive.
In either case, neither Madison nor the King of England could have foreseen in America's future that, one day, a guy from South Korea would help a former baseball team owner pretend to drown Middle-Eastern men in Cuba.
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