Scholarly and soft-spoken, former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo makes an unlikely villain. But a villain he is to many, especially to the critics of George W. Bush’s war-on-terror policies. Though Mr. Yoo’s role was an advising one, he is considered— because of memorandums he wrote in the wake of 9/11—the principal legal architect of Mr. Bush’s efforts to thwart another terrorist attack, including the authorization of warrantless wiretaps, the decision to put illegal combatants in the Guantanamo detention center, and the use of enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding. It was Mr. Yoo, the critics say, who trashed the Constitution in his zeal to defeat Islamic terrorism.
Not so fast, Mr. Yoo replies. “Crisis and Command” is a carefully argued historical survey of the evolution of presidential power, particularly the power to make war. The book reveals how the Bush war on terror, far from overstepping constitutional bounds, was rooted in a tradition that reaches back to George Washington himself. Mr. Yoo does not set out to vindicate himself personally, but it is hard not to read his analysis without feeling that much of the anti-Bush rhetoric of recent years—not to mention its anti-Yoo variety—has been grounded in ignorance as much as outrage.
Today the Obama administration may be starting to grasp that it can’t protect America on the war critics’ terms. The lessons of November’s Fort Hood shootings—and of the Christmas airplane bomber’s thwarted efforts—will be learned all the more quickly if they are accompanied by a close reading of “Crisis and Command.”
