What A Remarkably Sad Day For UC Berkeley

As if retired professor of law and anti-evolution and HIV denialist whack job Phillip Johnson wasn't enough of a stain on UC Berkeley's reputation. The birthplace of student activism and the Free Speech Movement uttered a collective groan last week as Prof. John Yoo, legal advisor to President Bush, advocate for the legality of torture of Guantanamo prisoners and other so-called enemy combatants, and advocate for limitations of prisoner protection under the Geneva Conventions, testified in front of Congressional leaders. Watching him evade direct answers or dodge any accountability for his legal council to the President would be laughable if it weren't so tragic and should be evidence enough of the moral bankruptcy of the current administration.


And Yoo will return to a comfortable tenure at Cal to no doubt lecture till retirement on the subtle yet vital distinctions between torture and strong coercion.