Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 9:13 pm by Darryl
On the Misunderstanding of Empathy and Excellence
Empathy Triumphs Over Excellence writes former Bush administration Justice Department Lawyer John Yoo.
As if the two are mutually exclusive.
John Yoo was one of the extremists lawyers in the Bush Justice department who attempted to provide legal justification for allowing the President to (1) torture detainees, (2) suspend habeas corpus and (3) engage the NSA in domestic spying. Many of Yoo’s most extreme opinions were later repudiated as legally unsound by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. There is an ongoing investigation of Yoo’s shoddy legal work by the Justice Department, and an investigation of Yoo for war crimes by the Spanish government.
Which just goes to show…a person can both lack empathy and excellence. Therefore, it makes sense that a person can possess both of these qualities without invoking the need for any kind of tradeoffs.
It’s hard to tell, though, if Yoo sees empathy and excellence as tradeoffs because of his profound lack of excellence or because he is a ambulatory Wingnut talking point.
Either way…the Wingnut War on Empathy™ continues….
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Excellent post. The audacity of the man talking about empathy in the Law when he went out of his way to twist it in order to justify Evil is astonishing.