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<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080>Listeners to my radio show, <EM>The
Monitor</EM>, know that over the past few years, one of the things we
kept hammering was the actions of the Bush administration that showed utter
disdain for the Constitution, for treaties including the Geneva convention, and
for human rights. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080>These Justice appointments from
Obama are the best news so far among his nominees, in my opinion. And,
they sound really really good. I'm hoping for a 180 degree turnaround
here; when any citizen (or non-citizen) can be tossed in jail without charges,
left indefinitely, and tortured by the government, the rule of law has been
locked away too.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080>You will recall that Obama taught
constitutional law for a time. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080>Prof. Laurence Tribe of
Harvard is quoted in the article. He has my utmost admiration as a
legal scholar and has, beginning over 20 years ago. I met him when he
went to bat for the gay and lesbian community, arguing in front of the Supreme
Court for decriminalization of gay/lesbian sex in 1986, <EM>Bowers v.
Hardwick</EM>, and I've interviewed him since. Whatever he says,
goes.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080>This is GREAT news!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080>Pokey Anderson</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>Obama's Justice nominees signal end of Bush terror
tactics</FONT></STRONG><BR></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>By Greg Gordon <BR>(<STRONG>Jonathan S. Landay</STRONG> contributed to this
article.)<BR></DIV>
<DIV>McClatchy Newspapers <BR>January 5, 2009<BR><A
title=http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/59012.html
href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/59012.html">http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/59012.html</A></DIV>
<DIV><BR>WASHINGTON — In filling four senior Justice Department positions
Monday, President-elect Barack Obama signaled that he intends to roll back Bush
administration counterterrorism policies authorizing harsh interrogation
techniques, warrantless spying and indefinite detentions of terrorism suspects.
</DIV>
<DIV><BR>The most startling shift was Obama's pick of Indiana University law
professor Dawn Johnsen to take charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, the unit
that's churned out the legal opinions that provided a foundation for expanding
President George W. Bush's national security powers.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Johnsen, who spent five years in the Office of Legal Counsel during the
Clinton administration and served as its acting chief, has publicly assailed
"Bush's corruption of our American ideals." Upon the release last spring of a
secret Office of Legal Counsel memo that backed tactics approaching torture for
interrogations of terrorism suspects, she excoriated the unit's lawyers for
encouraging "horrific acts" and for advising Bush "that in fighting the war on
terror, he is not bound by the laws Congress has enacted." </DIV>
<DIV><BR>"One of the refreshing things about Dawn Johnsen's appointment is that
she's almost a 180-degree shift from John Yoo and David Addington and (Vice
President) Dick Cheney," said Harvard University law professor Laurence Tribe,
referring to the main legal architects of the administration's approval of harsh
interrogation tactics.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Walter Dellinger, a Duke University law professor, said that Johnsen's
appointment "sends a very strong message that the administration intends to make
sure that its power is exercised in conformity with constitutional rights and
respect for civil liberties."</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Obama also said that he'd nominate:</DIV>
<DIV><BR>_ David Ogden, a top Justice Department official during the Clinton
administration, as deputy attorney general, the No. 2 figure under attorney
general nominee Eric Holder.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>_ Elena Kagan, the dean of the Harvard University Law School and a
former Clinton White House aide, as solicitor general. She'd be the first woman
to hold the post.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>_ Tom Perrelli, counsel to Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno from
1997 to 1999, as the associate attorney general who oversees civil
matters.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Obama said that he hoped that the four appointees would restore
"integrity, depth of experience and tenacity" to the lead federal
law-enforcement agency, which has been battered by scandal.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>"This is a superb set of appointments," said Dellinger, who headed the
Office of Legal Counsel from 1993-96 and then served as U.S. solicitor general.
"These four are highly accomplished in the profession and bring a stature to the
job that will allow them to say no to the president when no is the correct
answer."</DIV>
<DIV><BR>While Obama fleshed out his Justice Department team, Democratic
officials said that he'll name former Democratic congressman and Clinton White
House chief of staff Leon Panetta to head the CIA, tapping a figure who once
oversaw the secret budgets of spy agencies but lacks hands-on intelligence
experience.<BR>The Justice Department has yet to fully regain its image of
independence since allegations of political influence mired the agency in
scandal in 2007, leading to the resignations of Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales and about a dozen other department and White House officials.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Congress still is seeking records related to allegations that nine U.S.
attorneys were fired for political reasons, senior department employees skewed
career hiring to favor Republican applicants and politics influenced the
enforcement of voting-rights laws.</DIV>
<DIV><BR><STRONG>"It's clear that the Department of Justice has been savaged by
the Bush administration and has been profoundly disgraced," Tribe said. "It's
going to be a major task to rehabilitate it."</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><BR>The task will be complicated, Tribe said, partly because Republican
lawyers have been embedded in career jobs, and "a number of them will have to be
reassigned to responsibilities and places where their ideological
single-mindedness" doesn't interfere with their duties.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Obama's picks contrast with Bush's selection of Gonzales, who lacked
Justice Department experience. Since stepping down as attorney general in
September 2007, Gonzales has yet to find a job.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Without referencing Gonzales, Dellinger said that Obama's four picks
are "great lawyers who have terrific jobs they can go back to and the strength
to be a strong, independent voice for the law. They are not people who will be
easily pushed around."</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California-Irvine law
school, praised them as "highly professional, experienced lawyers who are not
partisans."</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Ogden, a partner at the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and
Dorr, served as chief of the Justice Department's Civil Division from 1999 to
2001. He's led the Obama transition team's Justice Department review.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Kagan, the Solicitor General designate, lacks Supreme Court experience,
but served as a Clinton White House adviser from 1995 to 1999 and has headed the
Harvard Law School since 2003. <STRONG>Tribe hailed her as "the greatest dean
I'd ever seen or imagined," and Chemerinsky said she "is held in incredibly high
esteem across the spectrum.''</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><BR>Perrelli, managing partner of the Washington office of the
Chicago-based law firm of Jenner & Block, served for four years in the
Clinton Justice Department, finishing as a deputy assistant attorney general in
the Civil Division.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Johnsen, whom Dellinger hired to the Office of Legal Counsel, served in
the unit for five years. During the presidential primaries, she joined Hillary
Clinton's campaign in
Indiana.</DIV></DIV></DIV><BR><BR><BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>