For the love of God, would those who are attacking Judge Jay Bybee and law professor John Yoo please criticize their legal reasoning, instead of merely rejecting their conclusion? If their reasoning is defective, it should be easy to demonstrate it. If it isn't, then the conclusion they drew is well supported, in which case there is no basis for investigating them (other than vindictiveness). As every lawyer knows, there are two sides to every legal dispute. What progressives are now doing is assuming, without argument, that there is only one side to the dispute over the legality of waterboarding and other interrogation techniques. This is not just intellectually dishonest; it is indecent. Lawyers who wrote memoranda in good faith are being persecuted for not having the "right" view, where "right" is defined as being in accordance with progressive dogma.
Addendum: Note what is going on. In their zeal to persecute Judge Bybee, Professor Yoo, and other Bush-administration lawyers, progressives are trying to intimidate anyone who is thinking about working in the executive branch of government, especially under a Republican president. What they are saying is that, if government lawyers don't toe the progressive line, their careers will be destroyed. Imagine the effect this will have on bright young law students, some of whom hope to work in government or teach in law schools. The net effect of these intimidation tactics is to ensure that only progressives enter government service. Recall that I was not attacked by Brian Leiter and his sycophants until I became a conservative. Until then, I was on their side. Once I struck out on my own, I became their enemy. You don't reason with your enemies; you destroy them. Leiter is the academic equivalent of a Mafia don, as even mainstream journalists are beginning to notice. (Why is there no link to this article on Leiter's Wikipedia page?)
Addendum 2: It occurs to me that one reason progressives don't criticize the reasoning of Judge Bybee and Professor Yoo is that they don't believe in legal reasoning. They don't think there are any legal constraints on lawyers (including judges). What looks like legal reasoning, in their view, is merely rationalization of a "conclusion" adopted on political or other grounds. In effect, they're saying the following to Judge Bybee and Professor Yoo: "You were not compelled by the law to reach the 'conclusion' you did. You know damn well that you could have reached any 'conclusion' you wanted and written a memorandum supporting it. So if you 'concluded' that waterboarding is legal, then either you believe that it's morally permissible to waterboard people, which is unthinkable, or you are a useful idiot." Notice all the unargued assumptions being made. The intellectual dishonesty of progressives goes all the way down.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 