Yoo Might be a Con Law Scholar if...

[Note: Cross posted at De Novo]

A few weeks ago A3G noted that Boalt con law Prof. John Yoo's new book was released. She also has a profile of John Yoo here. The profile notes that Yoo is a brilliant scholar and quite hilarious. As a student in his structural issues class, I considered writing this post to add to those characteristics, but decided to hold off. But now, at the midway point of the semester, I bring you quotes and miscellany courtesy of Prof. Yoo.

First, I discovered only very recently that Prof. Yoo is in fact married to a poet. Rumor has it that she does not share her poetry with him because he'd make fun of it. I can only imagine the dinner conversations. Second, Yoo has made the following snide remarks in class:

“It’s this area by the James River where settlers would come and die. It’s Virginia’s idea of a tourist attraction.”

“Judge asked ‘Isn’t that an Erie problem?’ And the lawyer answered 'Yeah it is kinda spooky.'”

“Three hours [on the senate floor] is a long time. You can raise taxes and seize property in a matter of minutes.”

“So you would strike the legislative veto down along the lines of what you just said. Which is not surprising since you just said it.”

“You’d have to have committee hearings…which are quite useful.”

“So in light of the whole Ken Starr affair…well more accurately the Bill Clinton affair.”

“The founders believed war powers included beating up on Indians, fighting Mexico, and expanding to our heart’s content, but not getting into wars with the Europeans without a declaration.”

Classmate: “It’s not like we need armed troops in Berkeley.”
Yoo: “I’d feel bad for our troops.”

“There’s this thing called the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. People on Telegraph Avenue still get upset talking about it.”

“Then there was the Whiskey Rebellion. Those were the good old days when we had real issues…whiskey.”

[Talking about Kyoto Protocol] “Scalia and Breyer have written about this in their concurrences and dissents where Scalia says that unfettered treaty power can lead to Federal government regulation of the wood you burn in your fireplace. To which Breyer responds, ‘Yes. And I love every minute of it.’”

“Let me ask you about France, since you’re from France, although you’ve had a lot of Constitutions so it’s hard to keep track of them.”

“You think the Bush administration has cronies…the Nixon administration was chock full of cronies.”

“You mean Clinton not Cheney? Because Cheney is not formally the President.”

“It only takes a threat of a filibuster for the Senate to say that you have to waive your executive privilege or we’re not going to confirm. It’s perfectly within their right. I mean I’d rather they do that than say we’re not going to confirm you because we don’t like your hair or the videos you watch. Blockbuster. They did that to Bork. *laughter* Oh you guys don’t remember? The media was so obsessed with his nomination that they dug up his video rentals from Blockbuster. It was a weird list of videos, let me tell you.”