The Philadelphia Inquirer and John Yoo

The Philadelphia Inquirer's decision to give a monthly column to John Yoo -- author of several "torture memos" offering legal rationales for the Bush administration's abusive interrogations -- is (pick your term): Tone-deaf? Crazy? Morally dubious? Newspapers have made a lot of questionable decisions in recent years, some perhaps unavoidable, some true whoppers. But this is just flat-out wrong.

The reason was predictable. Harold Jackson, the Inquirer's editorial editor told the New York Times that Yoo was hired for ideological balance: "'There was a conscious effort on our part to counter some of the criticism of The Inquirer as being a knee-jerk liberal publication,' Mr. Jackson said. 'We made a conscious effort to add some conservative voices to our mix.'"

Many newspapers and other traditional media outlets, fearful of the "liberal bias" charge and watching their audience disappear, have spent the past decade trying to build their credibility with conservatives. There's nothing wrong with that per se -- they are run mostly by liberals, and we need conservative voices in the political debate. But those efforts went awry during the Bush administration. Confronted by an White House that was wildly overreaching on presidential power, surveillance, torture and the politicization of basic governance, most media lost their bearings. They treated these things as normal, if controversial, activities of government.

Fortunately, the political system self-corrected. But the media's problems remain. Here is part of of Jackson's explanation for Yoo's hiring:

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.

But other providing a valuable forum for self-justification, I don't understand what the op-ed page gains with Yoo. There are plenty of talented conservative writers out there. Yoo's debut column is undistinguished conservative boilerplate.

The only reason Yoo is prominent enough to write a column in the Inquirer is because of his work in the White House Office of Legal Counsel. Hiring him is thus is an implicit endorsement of the legitimacy the legal opinions he crafted there. But those opinions are legally suspect and morally repugnant. Yoo is an advocate of a questionable legal theory of nearly unlimited presidential power, and his memos were instrumental in providing legal cover for techniques that were, by any commonsense interpretation of the word, torture.

Yoo might be a war criminal. At the very least, Inquirer editors should engage that issue directly. Simply hiring him says: we don't think so. This is an assent to the dangerous notion that if the U.S. government did it, no matter how reprehensible it might be, it must have some legitimacy. That's sad -- and not part of the American journalistic tradition I know.

Comments

[jamesmk]

Boycott. Not the PI, but their advertisers.

If you are outraged by this, what you need to do is hit the Inquirer where it hurts... in the pocketbook.

Find out who advertises on the Philadelphia Inquirer, and tell both the advertisers and the PI that as long as Yoo is on the Inquirer's payroll, you won't be buying any of their products.

Get a couple thousand people doing that, and Yoo will be gone right quick.

Comedian Kathy Griffin"s appearance at the Borgata Hotel in Atlantic City is being advertised on PI, as are Bruce Springsteen, Dane Cook, Jimmy Buffett, and Kenny Chesney.

Some other advertizers include:

Comcastic (Part of Comcast), this is an ad agency, let them know you'll be boycotting their clients.
SamsClub.com
www.enotes.com
AreaGuides.net
CatchHimAndKeepHim.com
The Rothman Institute
PECO
Tay-Sachs and Canavan
Len"s Auto Body
Washers Outlet
Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey
Wachovia
Vistage

Let them know you won't be seeing their shows, buying their products or using their services as long as the PI employs Yoo.

And let PI's advertising department too, there's all kinds of contact information for their advertising department on this page including an email address an 800 phone number, and a mailing address:

http://www.philly.com/philly/about/advertise/

I've already emailed them, now to let poor Kathy know why I won't be seeing her show.

[CarmanK]

the Philadelphia Inquirer is trying to sell newspapers. Hiring Yoo is an attempt for notoriety and contraversy. There is no legitimate arguement for torture, but after all why shouldn't they benefit financially from the "Cheney" defense of torture??? Like the Bushies, the Inquirer is trying anything just to survive.

[PhillyQuaker]

Agreed.

[hrholmes]

At least the New York Times got rid of the filth of the likes of Judith Miller and Bill Kristol. Obviously the folks at the Philly rag thought hiring the actual war criminals was better than just enabling shills.

[TommyMcCarthy]

For me the cases of Kristol and Miller are very different,­.......

I disagree with Kristol politically most of the time, and I believe he among others bear INDIRECT responsibility for alot of death and suffering in Iraq for thheir roles in cheerleading the U.S. into the invasion. I stress indirect responsibi­lities..be­cause Kristol is a columnist.­..a purveyor of opinions, his influence on policy is limited to pursuading policymakers and the public.

There is a persuasive case (at least to me)..that Judith Miller deliberately distorted hard news stories at the NYT...rega­rding Iraq's nuclear and WMD capabilities and links to Al-Quaida.­...and that she was at least peripherally involved in the punitive 'outing' of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent,..ag­in to further Bush administration policy goals in Iraq......­a very different thing...an­d by the way, a crime

Regards
tm

[SharpDressedMan]

Judith Miller was a repugnant deceptive reporter at NY Times. I am glad they let her go. Last I heard she is at FoxNews. They can have her.

You are partly right about Kristol but omitted his most influential background, that being a co-founder of Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The other co-founder was Robert Kagan. After their recommendations failed, they closed that think tank (used loosely) and created another one called the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) or PNAC 2.0. Read up on the agenda of those two organizations particularly PNAC and how instrumental they were in pushing for a second Iraq War not long after the first one finished in 1991. They tried to convince Bill Clinton and he didn't fall for it. Bush bought it hook line and sinker.

Kristol is more than a columnist, he is a pundit, think tanker (used loosely) and advocate for the neocon movement that George Bush embraced. His administration was a devastating failure and our country will be suffering its consequences for decades to come. Thanks in part to Kristol and Kagan.

Aside from defending the debunked Bush administration, his pet project in 2007 and 2008 was pushing Sarah Palin onto the national stage in part at the expense of John McCain.

Still think Kristol is "just" a columnist?

[JakeMontero]

Wow. the constitution should only work when is agrees with 'your' do pey views.

[langej]

Right. I get it now.
This guy Yoo disagrees with me.
Therefore, he should never be allowed to work again at any job - especially one where someone else might listen to those of his ideas that I disagree with.

[frag1409]

Maybe Supreme Court Justice Kennedy's "evolving standards" are evolving into something liberals didn't predict.

[jcwtts1]

The inquirer isn't a knee jerk liberal paper, even though Philadelphia is 75 percent democratic. It is way more conservative than it used to be just a couple of years ago. Maybe because a republican cabal bought it, maybe because some idiot believes that balance is a panacea, a cure all to keep up from understanding critically that if 75 percent of your readers are dems/liberals having a dem slant in your editorials is ok. I have read the inquirer for about 25 years now it has become increasingly rag like and I think this just about does it for me. I think I am done.

J

[fran-pan]

after all the subscribers drop their subscription maybe they will get the message. we dont' need a
suspected war criminal on every paper to give their distorted point of view..

[JohnHKennedy]

Torture is never debatable.

Torture is a Federal Capital Crime like Murder. We would not be debating Murder. Some of these prisoners died as a result of torture.

That is murder. Going to debate that as well?

Push Obama to do the right thing. Appoint a Special Prosecutor. Now!

SIGN THE PETITION Calling for a Special Prosecutor

http://ANGRYVOTERS.ORG

.

[PepperzMom]

Didn't the NYT try something similar with Bill Kristol?

Thought so, especially as we all know how that worked out...

[DaveCarroll4]

How many people have actually taken the time to read the memos that were produced at the OLC, during that period. These things are hideous, distortions of Law, even to a layman like myself; a Vet, a recovering addict and now a Certified Counselor. Who has read the Red Cross Report or the Congressional committee Report on Interrogations of Detainees? Have you ever heard of the "Voices of Detainees" document? You can get them right now @ http://www.media.mydavecarroll.com/page12.html or from the ACLU. Read them! See if you want any of these Bush OLC guys doing anything important in your country, let alone one of them being a Federal Appeals Court Judge!!! I wonder how many Politicians have even taken the time to actually read this stuff in it's entirety? Circumventing the Constituti­on... is what they did. That is undermining the "law of the land" and ILLEGAL, period! They should be in prison! You or I would be, for much less!

[phyllba]

One of the reasons I stopped subscribing to the Inquirer was the way they decided that Rick Santorum should be a regular commentator . Giving John Yoo a voice in the Inquirer just adds to my disgust. Not only is that paper a travesty, but it also has no respect for the people who read it.
John Yoo should be shunned by most media. He may be intelligent, but he doesn't care for the truth. I wonder if that's why the Inquirer hired him.

[roshni]

My Inquirer subscription has just been cancelled.
I want no part of this.

[abluevoice]

Great blog. But it all falls back on the Democrats for, continuing to turn the other cheek and not investigate or expose or prosecute these bums, like Yoo and Rove and Yoo's partner in crime, who is now a judge.
You don't see overtly right wing papers such as The San Diego Union Tribune or the NY Post or The Washington Times, hiring liberal columnists for balance. The radical right is still controling the debate in this country and the cowardly media. Look at the coverage Cheney is getting attacking the President. His daughter says the President and liberals are siding with terrorists on Fox, and gets away with it. Wanda Sykes says similar about Limbaugh, a talking head, and she gets criticism from everyone.

[frag1409]

"Confronted by an White House that was wildly overreaching on presidential power, surveillance, torture and the politicization of basic governance, most media lost their bearings."

The White House was responsible for domestic surveillance? Actually Senator Obama (the smartest constitutional lawyer in the land) voted that into law. And the dems have controlled Congress for how long now?

And what does "politicization of basic governance" mean? We're no longer able to have political debate? As long as we're bringing up "politicization", how about the current attempt to criminalize policy decisions of previous administrations? That threatens the one advantage that our system of government has had for 220 years: the peaceful transfer of power between administrations.

Whatever you think of the previous chief executive, Mr Yoo was not the executive who made policy. You cannot criminalize an opinion. Yet...

[valkyrie607]

Excuse me, but when the Office of Legal Counsel offers a LEGAL OPINION which advises the president on how to BREAK THE LAW, you can reasonably say that that opinion was possibly criminal.

[frag1409]

Keep your options open. Things you depise may not be illegal just because you say so. We'll see if Hopey McChange actually does anything differently. Get back to me in two years.

[CAPTAINSKIPPY]

Just guessing, but they hired Yoo rather than a union activist?