DON'T waste your time or, especially your money, supporting the author or the publisher of this ridiculous book.

Consider the source: I found this author's perspectives to be worse than useless, tedious, and tiresome.

If you want to learn about the way that former government bureaucrats have historically accounted for doing things in a horrifically wrong way, go to the library or to the National Archives or presidential libraries for primary sources; do not bother to rely on this text. If you do read it at the library, you may find that the biased assessments do not meet your standards for credibility and that the conclusions do not meet your minimum criteria of objectivity. As you know, the personal history of authors can cloud their judgments about national historical events.

Do NOT trust this author's assessment about anything as important as an accurate historical review of Executive Power for our country's self-examination.

I read that the Patriot Act was just renewed by the Democratic-controlled Congress and signed by Mr. Obama. So now it should be clear that all those deranged criticisms directed at Bush were exactly what Glen Greenwald recently admitted: poseur morality put forward simply for temporary political opportunity. What hypocrites!
And speaking of hypocrites - and naifs - look at the crazed vision of Bush and Cheney which so many of the posters here have running around in their enraged minds. What would these poor fools do if faced with a real dictator, a Josef Stalin perhaps, rather than a calm and civil man like Bush, whose diffidence in pursuing the WOT are well-known.
It reminds me of the "Real Last Episode of M.A.S.H.," the one never shown on TV. Hawkeye and BJ, after years of running down the military they were ostensibly part of, and gainsaying the mission of preserving the South Korean people and of war in general, are about to leave Korea. Suddenly, Chinese Communist soldiers overrun the American front and storm into the medical compound. Hawkeye, BJ and the other doctors and nurses are methodically tortured to death by the sadistic Reds before the US Army can counter-attack.
Credits. The End.

John Yoo's Crisis and Command is a turgid, 524-page love letter to an all-powerful presidency generally and to dictatorship specifically. His theme? More Caesar, less Senate. Infamous for penning the "Torture Memos" under the Bush administration where he justified Bush administration torture by virtually defining torture out of existence, Yoo's book contends presidential powers are unlimited: "The executive was, rather, the servant of necessity, bound to act in accordance with, in the absence of, or in extraordinary emergencies, in defense of the republic, even contrary to regularly constituted law." Yes, you read that right. Yoo says the President is above the law.
Yoo criticizes Thomas Jefferson and all who say that the power of the presidency has limits under the U.S. Constitution. The "great" Presidents, Yoo contends, are those who recognize they possess unlimited power, use it, and get away with it politically. Thus he applauds all of the worst excesses of the "great" presidents Lincoln and Roosevelt, from Roosevelt's court-packing scheme and internment of Japanese during World War Two to Lincoln's arrest of congressmen and newspaper editors who disagreed with him during the Civil War.
If this pretty much defines the concept of dictatorship, Yoo claims he's got Founding Fathers who will back him up. He doesn't, but it is a bit of fun to look a little further into his blatant dishonesty. Even Alexander Hamilton - that great lover of executive power - explicitly acknowledged that only Congress could bring the nation to war. Hamilton states unequivocally "war is a question, under our Constitution, not of executive, but of legislative cognizance. It belongs to Congress to say--whether the nation shall of choice dismiss the olive branch and unfurl the banners of war." Since Yoo quoted liberally from this same anonymous correspondence between Hamilton and James Madison over Washington's neutrality proclamation in Crisis and Command, he can't claim to be ignorant of Hamilton's views on the lack of presidential power to bring the nation to war. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison also each wrote explicitly that only Congress can bring the nation to war.
Yoo explains his view of what those "political developments" were at the time of the founding. The Natural Law? No, Yoo fails to mention it entirely. Inalienable rights of man as "endowed by their Creator"? Nah, the whole concept of individual rights is only discussed in the context of privileges that the President can suspend when he deems it necessary. And forget about any role God has on those rights. God makes no appearance in Crisis and Command, not even a cameo.
Enlightenment writers such as Locke, Montesquieu and Blackstone are mentioned in Crisis and Command, but Yoo acts as if they had nothing to say about individual rights or God. After all, if you have an unlimited executive, you can't have inalienable rights. An all-powerful President can't tolerate an all-powerful God giving out inalienable rights to everyone willy-nilly. The all-powerful presidency is a jealous god. The real lesson of the Enlightenment era, Yoo implies, is a clarion call for the same old unlimited executive power that has existed in every dictatorship in most of the governments throughout world history.
A God who gives out rights to all people by nature of their births and which are inalienable - inseparable - from those people is anathema to Yoo. "It is naïve to say, as Obama did in his inaugural speech, that we can 'reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.' That high-flying rhetoric means that we must give al Qaeda - a hardened enemy committed to our destruction - the same rights as garden-variety criminals at the cost of losing critical intelligence about real, future threats." Once again, Yoo claims that government gives out rights, though he implies that it ought not do so. Every freedom-loving American should have cheered Obama's statement quoted above, even if most experienced patriots had good cause to doubt Obama's follow-through.
Yoo's statements would be regarded as the rantings of a deranged post-communist apparatchik in a better time.

I won't belabor the obvious harms to the country and to the world that have been, and continue to be, done by people who, like John Yoo, are in love with the idea of unlimited executive power. What I want to point out is that Mr. Yoo, as a Boalt Hall professor, is supposed to be an honest and careful constitutional scholar. He is neither. I recommend that anyone even considering this book first read any of the critiques of Mr. Yoo's writings by Jeremy Waldron or David Cole. As those authors clearly demonstrate, Mr. Yoo simply does not know what he is taking about. Save your money.

Anything can be rationalized.

This book is a perfect example.

Regardless, "AGGRESSIVE WAR" - theme of BUSH II foreign policy - is literally and truly an international crime; It's unethical, it's immoral, and, it is a "mortal sin" as it is "murder", not "defense".

"THOU SHALL NOT KILL."

Keep things simple.

REPEAT: Anything can be rationalized.

Do not let this book convince you that "EVIL" is "GOOD".

George Orwell, we understand. Thank You.

Straightforward, compelling, this book puts to the lie the crazy criticisms of those who support the current administration.

I had heard Patrick O'Yoo was dead, which I'm happy to learn I guess was wrong! Anyway, I LOVE the whole "Crisis and Commander" series, and also the movie with Russell Crowe, who's sexy as heck even if I'm straight.

Anyway, the whole theme of the book "Crisis and Commander" is that there are these two friends, one a sailing warship captain and the other a ship's surgeon who's also a spy.

In one book a sailor is punished by tying him to a rope and dragging him underneath the ship, which I'm guessing Mr. Yoo really enjoyed writing about. And in another, the spy has his fingernails pulled out by the French (a 2-fer for Mr. Yoo! Write about torture AND make the Frogs look bad!).

So this is a great series for anyone who likes stories about hating the French, torture, or groups of sweaty, strong young men living for years at a time in close quarters without any women at all. It's right up Yoo's alley, and if you like his book I'll bet it's right up your alley as well. I can't wait for the next one!

John Yoo is a serious man. He understands that the Constitution is so precious that sometimes you have to destroy it in order the save it. To him, the Bill of Rights is a bunker on Omaha Beach, a threatening obstacle that has to be taken and burned in order to make our nation more pleasing to Our Dark Lord and Savior, Dick Cheney. Yoo wrote this book to justify such destruction.

He served this nation during very dark times. Our Great and Glorious Crusade Against The Unbelievers was underway, but Leader Bush was still stumbling, searching for a justification for His grand adventure. He needed political cover, and he needed it immediately. He summoned the Dark Lord from his undisclosed location and pleaded with him to provide it.

Cheney knew what had to be done. Saddam had to be tied to Al Qaeda. As a serious man, he understood that if evidence of such a tie was unavailable, it had to be created. Detainees would need to be coerced into making false confessions. It would require torture, an act that was considered unconstitutional at the time. Cheney turned to another serious man, Yoo--a man who would later tell Congress that the President can legally order a suspect to be burned alive or that his children be tortured--to write a justification for ignoring the Fifth and Eighth Amendments.

Yoo served the Dark Lord well by not only justifying torture but by destroying the Fourth Amendment to allow domestic spying as well.

I'm giving this book five stars--not because it is well argued or well written (it isn't) but because, like Yoo, I want to help shape our nation according to Lord Cheney's righteously Stalinesque vision.

It would be a much better book if Yoo added a few things. Serious men (and all serious people are men or at least have adam's apples) would support the use of suicide bombers in the defence of freedom. Surely, the College Republicans would eagerly volunteer to send the brown, black and poor on such missions. Suicide bombing needs a champion to advocate it as policy. Yoo would be perfect in that role yet he remains silent. Why is that?

The book would also be much more interesting if Yoo described what turned him into what he's become. Was it a frequent application of an Oxo Good Grips Brushed Stainless Steel Turner to the soft sweet flesh of his behind? Was it drinking non-fluoridated water? Does he deny his essence to women?

Perhaps he can add a chapter for the next printing.

John Yoo is a serious man. He understands that the Constitution is so precious that sometimes you have to destroy it in order the save it. To him, the Bill of Rights is a bunker on Omaha Beach, a threatening obstacle that has to be taken and burned in order to make our nation more pleasing to Our Dark Lord and Savior, Dick Cheney. Yoo wrote this book to justify such destruction.

He served this nation during very dark times. Our Great and Glorious Crusade Against The Unbelievers was underway, but Leader Bush was still stumbling, searching for a justification for His grand adventure. He needed political cover, and he needed it immediately. He summoned the Dark Lord from his undisclosed location and pleaded with him to provide it.

Cheney knew what had to be done. Saddam had to be tied to Al Qaeda. As a serious man, he understood that if evidence of such a tie was unavailable, it had to be created. Detainees would need to be coerced into making false confessions. It would require torture, an act that was considered unconstitutional at the time. Cheney turned to another serious man, Yoo--a man who would later tell Congress that the President can legally order a suspect to be burned alive or that his children be tortured--to write a justification for ignoring the Fifth and Eighth Amendments.

Yoo served the Dark Lord well by not only justifying torture but by destroying the Fourth Amendment to allow domestic spying as well.

I'm giving this book five stars--not because it is well argued or well written (it isn't) but because, like Yoo, I want to help shape our nation according to Lord Cheney's righteously Stalinesque vision.

It would be a much better book if Yoo added a few things. Serious men (and all serious people are men or at least have adam's apples) would support the use of suicide bombers in the defence of freedom. Surely, the College Republicans would eagerly volunteer to send the brown, black and poor on such missions. Suicide bombing needs a champion to advocate it as policy. Yoo would be perfect in that role yet he remains silent. Why is that?

The book would also be much more interesting if Yoo described what turned him into what he's become. Was it a frequent application of an OXY Goodgrips Turner to the soft sweet flesh of his behind? Was it drinking non-fluoridated water? Does he deny his essence to women?

Perhaps he can add a chapter for the next printing.

Outstanding read. John Woo has the insight that only few have. Take a look at the reviews here. Either 1-2 stars or 5 stars. That was what attracted me to the read. Glad I did. Thanks for the eye opener Mr Woo.

To illustrate his specious argument, Yoo chooses to select strong presidents with actions that have become cliches while demeaning the actions of other presidents who don't fulfill his determinant philosophy of "Act first, think later."

As if destroying people's lives or their countries is the mark of strength vs. thoughtful negotiation and consideration.

Today we invade. Tomorrow we reconsider. And later we regret.

Let us not forget heroes of such behavior as Grover "Big Steve" Cleveland and the 1894 Pullman Strike. Or William McKinley's "strong" actions in the Philippines which spread genocide from North America to Asia. Or the foolish directives of act first, think later presidents who caused millions to die in southeast Asia for fear of dominoes.

Yoo will take his blood money home. In a couple of years who will know of him? We have such short memories. Yoo will speak at universities. Offer up his opinion on places he has never visited and people he has never met. Perhaps he will snag a guest spot on increasingly unimportant Sunday network DC television shows. Those who own his book will be unable to garner 10 cents for it, selling it at their favorite used book store. What passes for thought with Yoo will be recognized as nothing other than posture.

What a shame.

The tide rises. The tide falls.

Over 500 pages of Bush/Cheney worship and rationalizing torturing potentially innocent people in the name of national security--I don't have the stomach for this NAZI garbage.

George Washington rejected torture even during a war for our very existence and when our own people suffered torture at the hands of the British. Its tragic how far our nation plummeted from the sublime of Washington to the gutter mentality of Bush/Cheney and this moron teaching law at Cal.