For those who don't know, John Yoo was, until recently, the legal architect of Bush's torture fixation.  Like many in the game, he was brilliant at image management, appearing academic, modest, and utterly non-partisan in his constitutional arguments. 

While advising Bush, and since, he has advocated a "unitary" theory of unencumbered executive power that allows the president almost total, unchecked domestic and foreign power in a time of war.  Since 9/11, he has always been careful to present this theory as one he claims to believe would apply to all presidents, Democratic or Republican.

Now we know that is a crock of shit.  How?  Because of a statement he wrote in 2000:


President Clinton exercised the powers of the imperial presidency to the utmost in the area in which those powers are already at their height — in our dealings with foreign nations.  Unfortunately, the record of the administration has not been a happy one, in light of its costs to the Constitution and the American legal system.  On a series of different international relations matters, such as war, international institutions, and treaties, President Clinton has accelerated the disturbing trends in foreign policy that undermine notions of democratic accountability and respect for the rule of law.


Yoo's claims regarding Clinton's excessive, "imperial" excesses are, of course, irrefutable.  Why, this was a president who ended the ABM Treaty that prevented nuclear war for the last 30 years, pulled the U.S. out of the Kyoto Accord on Global Warming, appointed as U.N. ambassador a raving fascist as some sort of fraternity prank, imprisoned an American citizen for three years without charge, evidence, trial, or communication with the outside world, claimed the president had the right to repeat this action on any American citizen he wished, and invaded, deposed, and replaced the government of a sovereign nation unprovoked.

Wow, that Clinton guy was crazy, right?  How did we ever survive such utter turmoil for eight solid years?!  Thank God we have principled scholars like John Yoo around to tell it like it is!