Gotcha While the Getting is Good.

Goctha! Is a stupid political game, but sometimes, the catch is too big not to play.

Orin Kerr lands this one:

"President ____ 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 ____ has accelerated the disturbing trends in foreign policy that undermine notions of democratic accountability and respect for the rule of law."

Who do you think wrote the passage above, and who was the President?

Well the President is obviously Clinton, because He. Did. It. Too. But the author?

John C. Yoo, The Imperial President Abroad, in Roger Pilon, ed., The Rule of Law in the Wake of Clinton 159 (2000).

I was okay with his "just a lawyer, making an argument" schtick until he started flogging a book of greatest hits, and going on talking-head blabfests to trot out "I don't make policy" and the like. But this seems to demonstrate such naked cynicism that I am simply stunned.