Bolton and Yoo on the Treaty Power.
The Volokh Conspiracy — It didn’t take long for conservatives to rediscover limits on executive power. You’d think something—if not philosophical consistency, then at least manners—would cause them to hold off until, say, inauguration day. In this case , it’s the wisdom of the framers—the bane of reasonable political and legal debate—that has locked the United States into a supermajority rule for treatymaking. Presidents can enter treaties only with the consent of 2/3 of the Senate. The rule is far too strict to be practical. No other major country has such a strict rule—most European ...

Resist The Executive!
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — On cue as a Democrat becomes president, John Bolton and war criminal John Yoo rediscover their conservatism.

Chutzpah Watch
Political Animal — CHUTZPAH WATCH.... John Bolton, the former ambassador to the U.N., and former deputy assistant attorney general John Yoo, best known for his torture memos and creative ideas about the "unitary executive," have a ...

A Real Treat
N/A — This couldn’t be more ironic. The Constitution’s Treaty Clause has long been seen, rightly, as a bulwark against presidential inclinations to lock the United States into unwise foreign commitments. The clause will likely be tested by Barack Obama’s administration, as the new president and Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton, led by the legal academics in whose circles they have long traveled, contemplate binding down American power and interests in a dense web of ...

Oh, the Irony: Bolton and Yoo are Concerned about Executive Overreach
PoliBlog: A Rough Draft of my Thoughts — John Bolton and John Yoo wrote a column that was is yesterday’s NYT entitled: Restore the Senate’s Treaty Power. They are worried about the in-coming President using executive agreements with foreign governments concerning matters such as the environment. They argue for the proper role for the Senate in the process of making binding foreign policy agreements with other states: THE Constitution’s Treaty Clause has long been seen, rightly, as a bulwark against presidential inclinations to lock the United States into unwise foreign commitments. The clause will likely be tested by Barack Obama’s administration, as the ...

BIG BRASS BALLS
Balloon Juice — ... No one could have predicted this would happen. John Yoo and John Bolton, in the NY Times, discuss the need to limit executive authority. ...

Chutzpah Alert
TPMCafe — ... On the chutzpah scale this one is off the charts. John Yoo, the author of the infamous torture memo and John Bolton, chief advocate of nuking Iran, have chosen to give the nation a lecture on the Constitutionthis morning. They are worried President Obama might work with other countries to try to slow global warming, leading to "draconian restrictions on energy use". The thought that James Imhoffe and a small cabal of Senate climate Change deniers couldn't hold this up under the treaty clause has them deeply troubled. ...

John Yoo Worries About Presidential Presumption
Hit & Run — In a New York Times op-ed piece, John Bolton and John Yoo, former Bush administration officials not known for expressing concern about executive branch power grabs, urge Congress to demand that the president respect its constitutional authority...to reject international agreements that Bolton and Yoo do not like. While evading the Treaty Clause's requirement of approval by two-thirds of the Senate was OK in the case of Bretton Woods, GATT, and NAFTA, they say, it is clearly improper when dealing with climate change agreements, the Law of the Sea Treaty, and the International Criminal Court. Bolton and Yoo, who as a Justice Department ...

Ready for a Big Laugh?
Shakesville — Warning: Put down your coffee, or other beverage, before reading: John Bolton and John Yoo have written an Op-Ed stating that we have to limit executive authority. America needs to maintain its sovereignty and autonomy, not to subordinate its policies, foreign or domestic, to international control. On a broad variety of issues — many of which sound more like domestic rather than foreign policy — the re-emergence of the benignly labeled “global governance” movement is well under way in the Obama transition. Candidate Obama promised to ...

HackWatch: John Yoo Edition
Hit & Run — Per Jacob Sullum's post below on the John Yoo/Michael Bolton piece in the New York Times, I think we have a new addition to our HackWatch feature.  Yoo, who under President Bush has argued that the president has the power to unilaterally withdraw from treaties, now wants the Senate to reassert its treaty power, because he fears the sorts of entanglements into which President-Elect Obama might get us enmeshed. Yoo gets an 9 out of 10 on the somewhat-arbitrary Hackery Index.  The only ameliorating factor, here, is that Yoo's hackery seems more issue-oriented than strictly party-oriented. That is, he ...

HackWatch: John Yoo Edition
The Agitator — Per Jacob Sullum’s post at Hit & Run on the John Yoo/Michael Bolton piece in the New York Times, I think we have a new addition to our HackWatch feature.  Yoo, who under President Bush has argued that the president has the power to unilaterally withdraw from treaties, now wants the Senate to reassert its treaty power, because he fears the sorts of entanglements into which President-Elect Obama might get us enmeshed. Yoo gets an 9 out of 10 on the somewhat-arbitrary Hackery Index.  The only ameliorating factor, here, is that Yoo’s hackery seems more issue-oriented than strictly party-oriented. ...

John Yoo and John Bolton: “Don’t Try Us for War Crimes!”
Firedoglake — ... John Yoo and John Bolton, two recently coverted and now stalwart defenders of the Constitutional principle of separation of powers, kidnap and torture the New York Times op-ed page to urge the Obama Administration to restore that principle with respect to treaty ratification after its long abuse by. . . Bill Clinton. Why would they do this? ...

Yoo Who?
Obsidian Wings — ... ), John Bolton and John Yoo have recently taken to the pages of the New York Times to preemptively warn about, of all things, executive overreach by the incoming Obama administation.  Specifically, the two Johns are worried that President Obama will be tempted to circumvent Constitutionally-mandated treaty-ratification requirements in the pursuit of certain items on the "global governance" agenda: namely greenhouse gas reduction measures and non-proliferation/arms control agreements. ...

John Bolton, the Mainstream Media's Favorite Neocon?
TPMCafe — ... such as the effort to cap and roll back North Korea's nuclear program. But his fall from power has come at a price. He is now the mainstream media's neocon of choice, widely quoted in news articles and placed prominently on op-ed pages as if he were just another pundit, not the co-author of some of the most disastrous policies in our nation's history. The last straw may have come today, when Bolton simultaneously had articles on the op-ed pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times (an impressive "daily double"). The New York Times ...

Unbelievable
Crooks and Liars — ... No one could have predicted this would happen. John Yoo and John Bolton, in the NY Times, discuss the need to limit executive authority. ...

For wanting selective Congressional oversight, John Bolton & John Yoo are GOP Hypocrites of the Week
BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash — John Bolton and John Yoo Welcome back to the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week. This week, we have two Neo-con uber hypocrites to receive the weekly prestigious BuzzFlash award: John Bolton and John Yoo. We need go no further than the first sentence of an op-ed they co-wrote on January 4 in The New York Times: "The Constitution's Treaty Clause has long been seen, rightly, as a bulwark against presidential inclinations to lock the United States into ...

Re: Iraq SOFA
The Corner on National Review Online — ... fool Joe Biden), Obama promises a responsible withdrawal, a 'diplomatic surge,' a new effort to assist refugees, and then this odd item: The Status-of-Forces Agreement Obama and Biden believe it is vital that a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) be reached so our troops have the legal protections and immunities they need. Any SOFA should be subject to Congressional review to ensure it has bipartisan support here at home. This is exactly the point John Yoo and John Bolton made in their NYT op-ed earlier this month: the Obama web site implies this will go to both houses of ...