Second Letter to the Inquirer

written in response to harold jackson's column this morning.

Oh, OK then. If being "pleasant" is all I need to do these days to get a job at a newspaper, I would like to submit my application for employment. I am a very pleasant individual. This probably bodes well for the future of the industry if all you have to do is be "pleasant" in order to write a column, no matter what your past transgressions are.

In case you need this spelled out for you a little more, those crazy Internet readers such as myself, do not protest to Yoo on ideological grounds. We protest his presence at the Inquirer because, as you wrote yourself in today's column, he was the author of the "torture memos". Let me say that again....he was the author of the "torture memos". He provided legal justification for people to be tortured. Even to say the words "torture memos" does not sit right with me. The fact that we are even having a debate over "torture memos" is something that I never thought we would do in the United States. It makes me sick. You also claim that Yoo's presence at the paper "has not changed our Editorial Board's opinion that torture can never be justified." Really? So to acknowledge this point is OK, but giving a forum to the author of the torture memos doesn't in any way mean that you think Yoo should be rewarded for his complicity in providing legal justification for an act that you believe should never be justified? How on earth does that make sense?

Your complete ignorance on this subject is quite appaling. You seem to want to confuse the issue in your column. Yoo started writing for the Inquirer in 2005, before the presence of the "torture memos" was known. Once those documents were released with Yoo's name all over them, you still thought he would be a good representative for the Inquirer. In a day in age when people are losing their jobs left and right because of issues that are no fault of their own, I'm glad that the man who made one of the worst legal blunders in history still got to keep his job. That is what this is all about. It's not the fault of some blogger (I must say thank you to Will Bunch...here is a guy you can actually learn something from in how newspapers can operate in the digital age) but the fault of the Inquirer to reward someone for committing actions that are against the very moral fiber of this country. Your arrogance in the face of the facts is truly unnerving.

I would also recommend you pick up a copy of Hannah Arendt's "The Banality of Evil". Even people who are "very pleasant" can sometimes do things that are morally indefensible and their pleasantness should not be a way to get let off the hook. John Yoo has no place at the Inquirer. If you are looking for a local to provide commentary on topical legal issues, pick up a yearbook for any area high school. I'm sure there are a number of people out of any class who went on to law school. And I am sure that quite a few of them might be able to provide interesting legal commentary to the paper. And I am positive that you chose the ONLY ONE with a background in justifying torture. Good work. If this speaks to how the Inquirer does its research and reporting then I am sure that the fate of the paper is nothing to worry about.

Day 1 of My Inquirer Free Lifestyle

and the world continues to turn!

I Will No Longer Read the Philadelphia Inquirer

update: cross posted at philebrity.

below is a letter i sent to the philadelphia inquirer this morning upon learning that they have hired john yoo, the chief architect of the bush-cheney torture policies, to write a monthly column for the paper.

I wanted to inform you that I will no longer be reading the Philadelphia Inquirer due to the paper's hiring of John Yoo to provide a monthly column.

It is unconscionable to me how the Inquirer could hire a columnist who was the architect for Bush & Cheney's torture policies. You are now giving a public forum to a man who swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, a document that has so much meaning to the city of Philadelphia, yet his body of work is one that is decidedly against the values and principles the Constitution stands for.

Let me be clear: this is not just about Yoo's right-wing ideology, although it is somewhat curious that the Inquirer's op-ed contributors are decidedly right-wing (Rick Santorum & Michael Smerconish come to mind) in a city that is one of the most liberal and Democratic in the nation (ever stop to think that maybe this is one of the contributing factors in the Inquirer's decline in readership?). This is about Yoo's role as a defender of torture. This is about Yoo's role as the architect of the previous administration's torture policy. This is about Yoo's complete disregard for human rights and the values of the United States of America. He SHOULD NOT be rewarded for his cowardice and poor judgment. The previous 8 years under Bush-Cheney are a black eye on this country and it pains me to see the architects of failure being so handsomely rewarded.

Because the Inquirer has shown a complete lack of judgment in this hiring, I hereby inform you that I will not read this newspaper until Yoo's employment is terminated. Fortunately for me we live in an age where Tiebout sorting for news on the Internet is as easy as 1-2-3, so I don't think I will miss the Inquirer much in my daily news consumption.