Imagine your accountant gives you bad advice and you file your taxes incorrectly. You are still liable for the mistake you made, and your accountant is liable also.

Similarly, if my lawyer says I can murder a stranger, I am responsible for my act, and my lawyer bears some responsibility.

Repression of opinion is irrelevant. Holding professionals accountable for their performance is the issue here.

And now, for their efforts, they will be castigated, interrogated, questioned, and possibly prosecuted.

Let me get this straight. You’re concerned about interrogation now? As long as they are interrogated using methods no worse than what they advocate in the memo what could possibly be wrong?

This is the situation that is alleged to have occurred. The problem isn’t that Yoo and the others expressed their opinions. The problem is that in the course of their professional duties as attorneys for the executive branch they wrote official legal opinions (not the same as a private citizen expressing an opinion) that many experts believe to be clear perversions of the law.

The Attorney General will determine whether there is sufficient merit to the claims to warrant a prosecution. This is proper. If the AG does decide to prosecute them, the judicial system will determine whether the facts support the charges. This is also proper.

I’m not saying that these guys are definitely guilty or that they should even be prosecuted. I’m not a legal expert. But your characterization of the issue is a gross oversimplification.

Those lawyers need not fear prosecution for expressing their opinion. If there was true suppression, the act of suppression was not classified, so they could have complained about it before the memos were released.

This is false. In order to express their dissent, these people needed to point at what they were dissenting to. If the object of their dissent is classified, then the dissent is also classified. Thus, by publicizing their dissent before the memos were declassified, they would have been guilty of of exposing classified information.

Bailouts, Card Check, crippling school choice, gun control and other wrong minded Obama policies are where right-wing/libertarian efforts should be focused.

No argument about that. And for the record, I was neither defending nor attacking Yoo’s decisions. I will, however, defend his right to hold and express those opinions without fear of prosecution.

Leaving aside the question of whether the memos should have been released or not, it seems to me that any decision about _prosecution_ is at the discretion of the judicial branch. Promises from the executive branch are irrelevant.

Enforcement belongs to the executive. The AG is appointed by, and reports to, the President.

I don’t get it. You sound just like the “moonbats” during the Bush administration, who were talking about how “they’re gonna come and take you away if you speak out against the government.”

In this case, however, we have the president and other very high level officials talking about prosecuting these men for expressing their legal opinions.

There’s no reason the memos shouldn’t have been released.

There is an argument that says that the information in these memos aids and abets the enemy. The last five directors of the CIA, including Obama’s own appointee, made that case.

There are a few White House lawyers during the Bush administration who are now able to come forward because of the declassification to say that their dissenting opinions were suppressed. They didn’t “say it was legal” like the rest of the Dept. of Justice.

Those lawyers need not fear prosecution for expressing their opinion. If there was true suppression, the act of suppression was not classified, so they could have complained about it before the memos were released.

Stuff about me personally elided. Let’s keep this about the issues.

Defending John Yoo is downright disgusting:

“First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully,” Yoo wrote, adding later: “The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”

It also seems a driver for much of this torture was to generate a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq to justify a pre-emptive war. Bob, you’re a real smart guy, but I think you’re wrong on this issue.

Bailouts, Card Check, crippling school choice, gun control and other wrong minded Obama policies are where right-wing/libertarian efforts should be focused.

There’s no reason the memos shouldn’t have been released. There are a few White House lawyers during the Bush administration who are now able to come forward because of the declassification to say that their dissenting opinions were suppressed. They didn’t “say it was legal” like the rest of the Dept. of Justice.

I’ve heard you speak. And I’ve been impressed by your level of intellect. But lately it seems that you’ve got partisan blinders on (or maybe just anti-Obama ones). That’s your choice, but still, you should be able to see when things are just wrong no matter who’s in power. I’m a pretty conservative person, and if there were any real conservatives in our national races, I’d vote for them. You gotta call it as it is though. If you’re looking to say bad things about BO, you should really look into the suppression of civil rights instead, or the *continuation* of the bank bailouts. Or (shudder) universal health care run by the government.

There are bigger fish to fry.