Restoring Justice at the OLC
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 12th, 2010 4:31 am by HL
Restoring Justice at the OLC
Dawn Johnsen, Washington Post
In 2004, the leak of a controversial memo on the use of torture catapulted the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel into the spotlight. Fallout and debate continue, including in the context of my nomination — withdrawn this spring — to head this office. While attention understandably is focused on confirming the president's Supreme Court nominee, the OLC remains, after six years, without a confirmed leader.It is long past time to halt the damage caused by the “torture memo” by settling on a bipartisan understanding of the proper role of this critical office and…
The Myth of Iran’s “Isolation”
Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post
In announcing the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran, President Obama stressed not once but twice Iran's increasing “isolation” from the world. This claim is not surprising considering that after 16 months of an “extended hand” policy, in response to which Iran accelerated its nuclear program — more centrifuges, more enrichment sites, higher enrichment levels — Iranian “isolation” is about the only achievement to which the administration can even plausibly lay claim.”Isolation” may have failed to deflect…
How We Talk About Energy
Matthew Yglesias, American Prospect
Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea how to shut down the massive oil leak currently taking place in the Gulf of Mexico. Nor do I have any ideas about how to clean it up or to mitigate the harm done by the oil already in the water. What's really needed are specifics, and political pundits are ill-positioned to offer them (my colleagues have suggested military expertise should be brought to bear). What I can say is that the politics of this disaster reflect, in part, a series of short-sighted decisions on the part of key progressive leaders.In principle, after all, a disaster of…
High Court & the Constitution: It’s Complicated
Dahlia Lithwick, Slate
David SouterAlmost two weeks ago, former Supreme Court Justice David Souter gave the commencement speech at Harvard, a speech that's been variously described by some of my favorite legal writers as a denunciation of “originalism,” a defense of “living constitutionalism,” and a suggestion that “judicial activism” is a game both liberals and conservatives can play. But the striking aspect of Souter's remarkable speech is that it rejected virtually all of these easy ideological labels and addressed itself to two much simpler questions: Is the meaning of…