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Yoo was there to give legal advice and this is what he said:

Your client the president, or your client the justice on the Supreme Court, or your client this senator, needs to know what's legal and not legal. And sometimes, what's legal and not legal is not the same thing as what you can do or what you should do.

When he says, "what you should do" he may be talking about how moral decisions are separate from legal opinions, and if he had just said that, he could be a reasonable person (a terrible lawyer because his opinion was so far off the mark, and kind of slimy because he enabled torture and now wants to say that he didn't mean Bush "should" have tortured, but still a person with rudimentary reasoning skills.)

But Yoo says "what's legal or illegal is not the same as what you can do..." He is saying that, yes, torture is illegal, but the President can do it anyway. What is his justification for this ridiculous statement? Well, he wants a big, strong "unitary executive" that will keep him safe and tuck him in at night and tell him he's special and keep all the scary people away.

It's bullshit. It's not legal advice. Best case scenario it's sucking up to your employer. Yoo should be disbarred immediately and then tried because he knows he was writing this for political and legal cover, i.e. he's a co-conspirator.

By the way, Chapman Law (at USC?) picked up this tub of goo after he left Berkeley (who should have never hired him). And this is what the Dean there said about hiring Yoo:

In the wake of 9/11, President Bush pledged to use every legal and constitutional tool at his disposal to prevent another attack on our homeland. Some of the task of identifying the line between legal and illegal, constitutional and unconstitutional, fell to Professor Yoo during his time of service in the administration. Many believe his legal analysis was flawed, but others, serious constitutional scholars and historians among them, think he got it right or at least made a fair stab at it. The opportunity to explore some of the most profoundly important legal questions of our age with someone who was actually present and involved in the them, whether it be Professor Falk or Professor Yoo, is a phenomenal opportunity for our students, even (and perhaps especially) those who vehemently disagree with the positions they have taken. As Dean Edley noted, that is the mark of a truly great law school, and I am honored to say that Chapman is increasingly worthy of being considered in such company, in no small measure due to prominent appointments such as Richard Falk and John Yoo.

That is so freaking disingenuous to say that there are "serious constitutional scholars and historians" who "think he got it (torture memo legal opinions) right or at least made a fair stab at it."

Sure. Name one, you disassembling fuck.

He wouldn't have had to say "made a fair stab at it" if there were a single "serious" lawyer at all who thought Yoo was anything but a hack. Leave it to a dean to fall into a senseless, poorly constructed argument that would get an F in a freshman writing class.

By the way, it sure is nice to preface everything with "in the wake of 9/11" like that is somehow remotely relevant. You remember how they teach at law school the 9/11 defense: everything is legal if you're in a fucked up state of mind because you're overwhelmed by your job responsibilities and you really want to see if you can test some limits? I think they generally teach that right after the Chewbacca defense. Well, what about when the US invaded Iraq and started torturing Iraqis? (You think those military dogs and hoods were requisitioned, approved, invoiced, and brought in to Abu Ghraib by "a few bad apples"?) Was Yoo justified in allowing that torture because we were in the fucking wake of 9/11?

I'm with Rude Pundit, John Yoo is a piece of shit, and I would welcome the opportunity to express my utter revulsion with him in person.

Nationalize the industry, top to bottom.

A society which permist private profit from sickness and death (and the incarceration) of its citizens is a society of barbarians and parasites, and deserves to die.