All posts tagged "law"
Pragmatist and Law - Supreme Court »
EXERPTS
Pragmatism has its detractors, and in a confirmation battle, Mr. Obama’s nominee could face charges that he or she does not give enough weight to formal law. But although Mr. Obama is results-oriented, he retained an overall skepticism for what courts can accomplish, said David Strauss, a former colleague at University of Chicago. In Mr. Obama’s due process and voting right classes, he showed students the broad failures of Reconstruction-era amendments that tried to establish equality for blacks.
Even as law review president, Mr. Obama de-emphasized his own views and instead made himself a channel for those of others. His decision making was “about the group sentiment and what the group majority might agree to,” said Nancy McCullough, a fellow editor.
Obama to Select Justice - Justice Résumé »
EXERPTS
The current court is the first to be made up entirely of former federal appeals court judges. And only a few of those appeals courts at that: seven of the justices served on what might be called the court of appeals for the Acela circuit, in Boston, Philadelphia and Washington.
In voting against the nomination of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. as a senator, Mr. Obama said that “adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon.”
My Tortured Decision »
FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified.
….
Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D’Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general).
….
We must ensure that the mistakes behind the use of these techniques are never repeated. We’re making a good start: President Obama has limited interrogation techniques to the guidelines set in the Army Field Manual, and Leon Panetta, the C.I.A. director, says he has banned the use of contractors and secret overseas prisons for terrorism suspects (the so-called black sites). Just as important, we need to ensure that no new mistakes are made in the process of moving forward — a real danger right now.
