In defending himself from a recent federal report that sharply criticized as faulty his legal justification for a massive and secret Bush administration domestic spying and data mining program, ostensibly under the guise of stopping terrorism, John Yoo, a former Bush admin. lawyer wrote this in the Wall Street Journal today: "Our Constitution created a presidency whose function is to protect the nation from attack."
This is the upshot of his argument? Has Yoo read the Constitution? The oath the president is required to take before entering office, which is written into the Constitution, says this:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
This oath says nothing about protecting the nation from attack.
It states quite clearly that the president must uphold the Constitution, even those messy amendments and articles that create protections against unreasonable search and seizure and equal protection under the law and the co-equal branches of government the Bush administration, under the patently amateurish legal advice of Yoo, found so dispensable.
