Philadelphia Inquirer hires John Yoo as a columnist.
Philadelphia Inquirer hires John Yoo as a columnist.
The Philadelphia Inquirer already has a long line-up of conservative columnists, including Michael Smerconish and Rick Santorum (who reportedly makes $1,750 per column). Attytood’s Will Bunch reveals that the Inquirer now has one more: torture architect John Yoo. The Inquirer hired Yoo in late 2008, but according to Bunch, didn’t give him a byline as an “Inquirer columnist” until Sunday. Bunch wrote to Inquirer editorial page editor Harold Jackson and received this response:
John Yoo has written freelance commentaries for The Inquirer since 2005, however he entered into a contract to write a monthly column in late 2008. I won’t discuss the compensation of anyone who writes for us. Of course, we know more about Mr. Yoo’s actions in the Justice Department now than we did at the time we contracted him. But we did not blindly enter into our agreement. He’s a Philadelphian, and very knowledgeable about the legal subjects he discusses in his commentaries. Our readers have been able to get directly from Mr. Yoo his thoughts on a number of subjects concerning law and the courts, including measures taken by the White House post-9/11. That has promoted further discourse, which is the objective of newspaper commentary.
Bunch responds: “The higher calling for an American newspaper should be promoting and maintaining our sometimes fragile democracy, the very thing that Yoo and his band of torture advocates very nearly shredded in a few short years. Quite simply, by handing Yoo a regularly scheduled platform for his viewpoint, the Inquirer is telling its readers that Yoo’s ideas — especially that torture is not a crime against the very essence of America — are acceptable.”
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll
Somewhat akin to hiring Dr. Mengele to write the medical column for your local paper. . .
May 12th, 2009 at 9:55 amPhiladelphia Inquirer hires John Yoo as a columnist.
– - The Inquirer is the start of the logical progression to his Inquisition.
May 12th, 2009 at 9:55 amPhiladelphia Inquirer hires John Yoo as a columnist.
– - On second thought; Inquirer, Inquest, Inquisition, Incarceration.
May 12th, 2009 at 9:57 amAs someone in the Philly burbs, I’ll be calling them today, and emailing my progressive friends here to do the same.
When a paper is in financial crisis, having a flood of calls from people stating they will no longer be readers if Yoo is given a voice in their paper, it has impact.
Or, they could change their name to the Philadelphia Enquirer.
PEACE
May 12th, 2009 at 9:58 am–Son of Pol Pot Pens Propaganda. . .
May 12th, 2009 at 9:59 amAtrios keeps saying the Inquirer is going out of business.
This must be one of those ‘last gasps’ I’ve heard so much about.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:01 amMy Mom canceled her subscription to the Inquirer years ago because of their thuggish Union busting tactics. I see nothing has changed at the Stinky Inky since.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:06 amDaddy-O Says:
Atrios keeps saying the Inquirer is going out of business.
This must be one of those ‘last gasps‘ I’ve heard so much about.
– - Headline: “Waterboard Advocate Yoo Delivers ‘Last Gasp’ To Philadelphia Inquirer”
May 12th, 2009 at 10:06 amPhilly Enquirer files for Chapter 11 in 3…2….1….
May 12th, 2009 at 10:08 amHis previous writing has killed enemy combatants & the Republican party now he is gunning for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:16 am“…however he entered into a contract to write a monthly column in late 2008.…Of course, we know more about Mr. Yoo’s actions in the Justice Department now than we did at the time we contracted him. But we did not blindly enter into our agreement.”
Yoo defended torture in front of the Judiciary Commitee in MAY 2008.
If the Philly Enquirer somehow missed that performance then they don’t deserve to be called a newspaper.
But of curse they didn’t miss it. And they don’t know more about John Yoo now, they know exactly the same as the rest of us knew THEN in MAY 2008-–that Yoo is a sadist and believes in the divine right of Republicans.
The Enquirer is pretending that it has a contractual obligation that it can’t break ( to do so would be ‘wrong’!).
May 12th, 2009 at 10:18 amIn fact this is just another example of Right-wing Welfare at work.
Evidently we have two kinds of so called morality in this country. We have the expedient, hypocritical kind that flows through religion. And we have the kinds demonstrated in the government and some of our other institutions. These examples are the universities that hire a man like Yoo, and the newspapers that no longer print news and the men like Yoo that they hire. Everything is up for grabs now.
This newspaper in hiring this man, is telling it’s readers that the rules of democracy do not apply. And this is an example of why newspapers are going under at an alarming rate. It is not only that they fail to print objective and complete news, but that they deal in a facile kind of democracy. One that provides only a shadow of what a free press is supposed to do.
Shame on the Philadelphia Inquirer.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:19 amOT: On Rachel last night she something about calling the white house about the DADT;http://knightsout.org/node/53…….E1 call!!!
May 12th, 2009 at 10:21 amhttp://knightsout.org/node/53
May 12th, 2009 at 10:21 am…
torture a competing view?
what a world they live in.
war is peace,
freedom is slavery,
ignorance is strength.
:\
:|
May 12th, 2009 at 10:23 amCan’t they just create one huge money laundering business that all of the war criminals can go to to get one of those extremely high paying ‘it’s your turn to scratch my back’ careers ?
May 12th, 2009 at 10:26 amOkay, before we get all crazy here… remember: This is America and we do believe in Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press. If the Inquirer feels that it better serves its customers by providing a platform for a facist worldview that Mr. Yoo would provide, that’s their right.
We have the right, on the other hand, to not buy the newspaper, and to loudly debate with Mr. Yoo at any time to expose his rather scary viewpoint.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:29 amjoe cantwell Says:
…
torture a competing view?
______________
Why… crushing a child’s testicles in defense of America’s Freedoms™ has always been one of our country’s proudest values… don’tcha know?
Right, CfP?
May 12th, 2009 at 10:29 amWhy wont my call get through? 1-202-456-1111?
May 12th, 2009 at 10:32 amConservativeForProgress Says: ” If Will Bunch truly is a great journalist, he should welcome the chance to deal with competing views.”
How is the advocacy and implementation of torture a “competing view”?
Torture was illegal and is illegal by LAW.
If a teacher repeatedly burned your kid with cigarettes to find out whether he/she had knew the State Capital of Arkansas, you wouldn’t object, whould you?– After all it’s just a “competing view” of how to test your kid.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:33 amLet’s give ‘em some Enhanced Derogation Techniques
May 12th, 2009 at 10:33 am- “Quite simply, by handing Yoo a regularly scheduled platform for his viewpoint, the Inquirer is telling its readers that Yoo’s ideas — especially that torture is not a crime against the very essence of America — are acceptable.” -
It is not just torture. He was there on illegal wiretapping, posse comitatus, the unitary executive and dictatorship through the unending “GWOT”.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:35 amWow. That really is pretty scummy by the Inquirer.
I won’t shed a tear when they go under. Buh bye!
May 12th, 2009 at 10:36 amI certainly hope this results in many subscription cancellations. It’s so odd that the right has claimed, erroneously, a ‘left wing’ bias in the media while doing its best to take over news outlets everywhere. Everything they accuse the liberals of doing is what they either do or what they are dying to do. Like the Federalist Society stealthily stalking appointments on courts everywhere for decades until they resulted in a huge swath of the Supreme Court… Listen to what they’re accusing others of doing, and you will know they are doing it themselves, absolutely.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:37 amDid Bunch ask Harold Jackson if his paper will still have such high regard of Yoo’s legal opinion after he is dis-barred and awaiting war crimes trials?
May 12th, 2009 at 10:37 am\Who said crime doesn’t pay?
May 12th, 2009 at 10:39 amReal Americans don’t split hairs about torture. Why don’t you and the rest of the scared little torture monkeys secede and form a country full of cowards that will do any stupid thing that makes them feel safer.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:41 amI think what they’re actually telling their readers are their rules for democracy apply. Unfortunately, their rules aren’t the rules the rest of us would live by in a real democracy.
This is just another example of why there must be investigations and prosecutions.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:43 amOh, god, another troll who doesn’t know what “circular argument” means.
Or maybe just the same one as always with a different handle.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:43 amCfP,the problem is the opposite of ‘dealiing with competing views.’ With Yoo on the same paper there will be strong pressure from the top for Bunch not to attack a fellow columnist.
And if he doesn’t, won’t there by an appearance that he agrees with him?
And in regard to the freedom speech issue, this:
a) John Yoo has a regular column with the Inquirer.
b) I want one, but the Inquirer won’t give it to me.
If a) is freedom of speech, b) is deprivation of freedom of speech.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:44 amQED.
I’d write some nasty letters to the editor and cancel my subscription. I did that in LA, and it didn’t work either. Oh well.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:45 amI’m not sure if it’s a classic “false flag” operation or just a manifestation of conservative self-absorption.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:46 amralph the wonder locust Says:
Or maybe just the same one as always with a different handle.
“Or”?
All that pomposity doesn’t ring any bells? Maybe the constant repetition of “if you’re name-calling, you have no argument–dismissed!” is familiar?
May 12th, 2009 at 10:47 amConservativeForProgress Says:
5th estatate: Your logic, or lack thereof is circular. The argument is not whether or not torture is illegal. The argument addressed by Yoo was whether some enhanced interrogation techniques used with strict guidelines and controls, constitute “torture” under the law.
***
nice spin cycle.
can you do that while
standing on one leg?
:)
:\
May 12th, 2009 at 10:47 amWell that will solve their problems.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:48 amI don’t see any circular logic in 5th’s post CFP. Waterboarding IS torture. Always WAS and WILL BE. Yoo is the worst kind of lawyer, one who justifies his client’s criminal actions and desires rather than being the voice of legal reason and telling his client, “no you can’t do that, it is illegal”. Even using the neocon’s defense that the techniques that were approved only came up to the line and didn’t cross it is a falacy. Waterboarding is torture. Waterboarding a man six times a day for a month, along with every other tool in the CIA’s interrogation book from extreme sleep deprivation to walling is more like enhanced torture. I don’t expect someone like you to agree but you must agree that there is more than enough evidence to call for an independent prosecutor. Who knows, maybe he would agree with you but I doubt it. Didn’t the Bush/Cheney Administration like to say something…what was it? Oh yeah, “If you’ve done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide…”
May 12th, 2009 at 10:51 amYoo’s a lawyer who enabled lawbreaking. He’s either grossly incompetent or grossly dishonest, from reading his legal product, I’d say both. He does bring a competing viewpoint to the paper, but it’s already discredited. The paper thus discredits itself by hiring him.
Really Cheney, Yoo, Addington et al need to be made pariahs. Any society that grants them respect tarnishes itself. Not tarnishes, abases perhaps.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:53 amI think I’m beginning to see now… in CFP’s world, “illegal” is simply a “competing viewpoint” to “legal”.
That must be awfully convenient.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:56 amYoo practiced the same M.O. the Iraq war architects did when he crafted his torture memos.
“facts were being fixed around the policy”
Don’t forget it…this behavior by Yoo and his colleagues was not a mistake, it was by design.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:58 amI cancelled my subsricption today. As a reader of the Phila Inq. I am insulted they had the balls to print this mans drivel. It’s bad enough Rick Santorum had his crap published, but to give this man a platform is disgusting.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:02 amConservativeForProgress Says:
The argument addressed by Yoo was whether some enhanced interrogation techniques used with strict guidelines and controls, constitute “torture” under the law.
_______________
Wow… does calling torture “enhanced interrogation techniques used w/ strict guidelines and controls” simply make the actions no longer “torture”?
Cool…. I had NO IDEA it was SOOOOOOOOOO SIMPLE!!!
See, guys, and girls… all we have to do is call something, like torture, something else, like “enhanced interrogation used w/ strict guidelines and controls” and it’s no longer illegal.
TORTURE… is still illegal… BUT… “enhanced interrogation used w/ strict guidelines and controls” isn’t. It’s SOOOOOO SIMPLE!!!!
______________
So… I guess that makes crushing a child’s testicles acceptible too, huh?
‘Cause… it’s not REALLY torture… if we just call it “enhanced interrogation used w/ strict guidelines and controls”, right CfP?
May 12th, 2009 at 11:10 am_________
Cassel: If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?
Yoo: No treaty
Cassel: Also no law by Congress — that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo…
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.
ConservativeForProgress Says: The argument is not whether or not torture is illegal. ”
I was addressing YOUR argument:
Yoo justified torture.
Yoo enbaled torture.
Yoo defended torture.
And YOU think that Yoo’s position on torture, on the cruel and inhuman treatment of prisoners, is just a “competing view” and thus somehow valid simply because it is a “competing view”.
Thus according to YOU he apparently deserves to paid to expresses those views if he so wishes (which he can do as a contracted columnist) and which he surely will do as public examination of this issue continues.
BUT what he advocates is ILLEGAL—so that is the issue.
YOU are supporting Yoo’s advocacy of ILLEGAL acts.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:16 amYoo is worse than a Nazi – and he needs to be treated like a Nazi: imprisoned, put on trial and then executed for the war crimes he enabled.
He’s a bigger shyster than Johnny Cochran could have ever dreamed of being.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:25 amLet’s apply the CFP logic to another act of violence:
The argument is not whether or not rape is illegal. The argument addressed by Yoo was whether some chemically enhanced seduction techniques used with strict guidelines and controls, constitute “rape” under the law.
Nonsense. Rape is rape. Torture is torture. Trolls are trolls.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:27 amBREAKING NEWS: Charles Manson recently contracted with the Philadelphia Inquirer to write a monthly column on family life, providing a “competing view” according to the paper’s spokesman.
/snark off
May 12th, 2009 at 11:32 amI told Harold Jackson when Yoo’s column first appeared that he had written the torture memos, and that it would be bad to run his stuff. He was all like, “He has an opinion.”
As a retired Inquirer copy editor, I am so ashamed.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:37 amWhy doesn’t the Inquirer invite a high ranking KKK member to write a column on the inferiority of certain races? Or maybe hire Bernie Madoff — he could write a column called, “Ponzi Schemes for Fun and Profit.” Or just find an unapologetic terrorist and give them column-inches so they can justify cruelty for their cause. Oh wait, the Inquirer just did.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:48 amOur country is on tilt, even though we have a new president justice is not yet served…Now we have the inventer of the torture memos along with the rabid doer’s of commiting these crime’s reaping profit’s by preaching and printing their lie’s for the benefit of their own bloated bank account’s…If justice were served all of these people like Yoo, bush, cheney, rove and rice, just to name a few, would be in court under arrest for war crime’s…..”There is no justice, only point’s of law”. is a very scary thought when people as evil a Yoo and all the above rewrote the law’s as they went along to break all the previous law’s….Has rove or any of the one’s mentioned before been brought in for avoiding the request to testify.? How soft on war crime’s are our own now that we see they are allowing this…Any one breaking the law and then writing a book or receiving fund’s from their law breaking usually has to surrender those fund’s to the abused….This little ditty of ignoring prossacuting these criminals just adds more guilt to the enabelers…Jeebos I am so sick of the spineless enabelers allowing this to continue….P.B. & J
May 12th, 2009 at 12:07 pmBunch is wrong. The HIGHEST calling of a news agency is the truth, and the truth is: Yoo is a criminal. He has admitted that he has done things that violate the Constitution, international law and even simple common sense. The only reason he isn’t in jail is that they haven’t arrested him and put him on trial. His guilt is not in contest, even by him. His only defense is that it’s not illegal or that they somehow made it legal, which makes no sense to me at all. It’s only the fact that we haven’t quite decided if it is a crime worth putting him in jail yet that keeps him walking around free. Does the Philly I. want to have a mad like that on their payroll?
What Bunch says is dangerous: that a news organization should be in the business of propping up democracy. No! Absolutely not! If we get to the point where telling the truth might tear down our democracy, we’ve gone so far afield that it’s not worth saving, even if it is a democracy. Maybe he didn’t mean it like that. In fact I’m sure he didn’t, but there’s someone somewhere who’s taking notes for his next campaign, and words like that have a nasty habit of coming back to haunt all of us.
May 12th, 2009 at 12:22 pmI cancelled the Los Angeles Times when they fired Robert Scheer and hired Jonah Goldberg and Max Boot both of them I consider right wing chickenhawk ass clowns. What this paper has done is much worse because they are not in bed with a war criminal. They deserve to go down the drain.
May 12th, 2009 at 12:39 pmKasinca,
I did the same. I protested the hiring and firing as well as I could. But to no avail. It’s been a few years now and Boots still there. With newspapers going down the drain across the country you’d think the owners might realize their readership demands the truth, not propoganda.
In the Times case, they don’t have a clue. I think the Inquirer is headed down the same path. And, once they have to cut staff and more staff (like LA) they still will be clueless.
May 12th, 2009 at 12:57 pmUn . . . flippin’ . . . believable!!!!!!
Crazy man Santorum was bad enough.
What could Yoo possibly write that would make his opinions worthy of reading?
May 12th, 2009 at 1:11 pmThat’s why “in Philadelphia everybody reads the Bulletin”–at least in the old days!
May 12th, 2009 at 2:05 pmGordon Liddy, Oliver North…surely there are others. I don’t get it.
May 12th, 2009 at 2:25 pmYoo is a piece of Poo.
May 12th, 2009 at 3:54 pm.
Customer Service Center
The Philadelphia Inquirer
P.O. Box 13942
Philadelphia, PA 19101-3942
Main Switchboard: 215-854-2000
.
May 12th, 2009 at 4:04 pmUSA… the place where WAR CRIMINALS can walk free. A place where the government doesn’t care if the rest of the World does not Trust them anymore… a Place where financial criminals get bail out. A place wher you pay for helth care…
May 12th, 2009 at 4:11 pmA place of “CHANGE”…
What a country we have! Most Americans approve of torture and don’t want torturers and murderers held to account; instead they get lucrative jobs and hefty pensions. Americans overwhelmingly support our and Israel’s slaughter of civilians, including children, and use of cruel weapons such as cluster bombs and white phosphorus. They delight in the death penalty and massive military spending. And they see no contradiction in the fact that at one and the same time we are the most pious Christian nation on earth.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:27 pmI have subscribed to the Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty years, but this is the last straw. I am calling to cancel my subscription today.
May 13th, 2009 at 8:48 amThank you, ThinkProgress, for bringing this to my attention. I just cancelled my subscription and sent the following letter to the Inquirer management and publisher:
Dear Sirs:
I’ve been an Inquirer subscriber for over a year, since moving to Philadelphia to take a cancer research position here. While I’ve found the Inquirer’s columnists to be more right-leaning than I prefer – and some, like Rick Santorum, to be both right-leaning and fairly offensive to me – I nevertheless subscribed to the Inquirer in order to support my local newspaper, and to make sure that I have and maintain a healthy understanding of local issues, and to read alternative views. Over the year, I’ve found the Inquirer to be an average paper in terms of content and writing style compared to the Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and the NY Times – the papers of the cities where I’ve previously lived. Most of your pages contain far more advertising than text, most of your national and international news stories are direct from the wire services. With the excpetion of a few interesting investigative highlights such as the recent piece on the property tax board, your paper is adequate for local news, but no standout. Nevertheless, I was willing to continue to subscribe because, while not wonderful, the Inquirer was occasionally useful and mostly inoffensive. Also, I’m a big supporter/believer in the importance of newspapers in a free society. Subscribing to the Inquirer was, as I saw it, “doing my part”.
However, after learning today that the Inquirer has hired John Yoo to write a regular column (http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/12/yoo-inquirer/), I feel compelled to cancel my Inquirer subscription (which I’ve actually just done). I refuse to support a business that allows someone like John Yoo, who knowingly and willfully manipulated the law to allow the Bush administration to engage in torture, a platform from which to continue to propagate and disseminate his amoral and unethical views. Moreover, Harold Jackson’s justification, is sophomoric and offensive. To think that it’s appropriate to hire someone like John Yoo because “he’s very knowledgable about the legal subjects he discusses” is not far removed from justifying hiring Bernard Maidoff to write a business column because he used to be head of NASDAQ, or Josef Mengele to write a health column because he’s knowledgable about medical subjects. If this is the best argument that your editorial page editor can make, then I question his judgement with regard to the entire editorial page content. If this is the type of thinking that goes into Inquirer editorializing, then it’s clear that your editorials are not worth reading.
I certainly recognize that a newspaper has an obligation to present multiple perspectives. However, to hire someone who is a subject of your own news stories, someone who is being looked at, at a Congressional level, as a subject of investigation for his role in facilitating torture, and someone who is so brazenly one-sided in his thinking, shows an extreme lack of judgement on the Inquirer’s behalf. At a time when the very survival of the Inquirer is at stake, it is a shame that your company is making such amateurish mistakes. It has cost you at least one customer.
Sincerely,
Samuel C. Blackman, MD, PhD
cc: On The Media (National Public Radio)
May 13th, 2009 at 10:39 am