Columnist Picks Administration’s Top 10 Stupid Legal Arguments
Slate legal columnist Dahlia Lithwick has named the Bush administration’s top 10 stupid legal arguments of 2007.
No. 1 on Lithwick’s list: “The United States does not torture. Except for when it does.”
Many of Lithwick’s picks relate to the war on terrorism. Her No. 2 choice is the state secrets privilege. She concludes it has “ballooned into a doctrine of blanket immunity for any conduct the administration wishes to hide.”
Other arguments she puts on the list:
–Waterboarding may not be torture.
–The Guantanamo Bay detainees enjoy more legal rights than any prisoners of war in history.
–The NSA’s eavesdropping was limited in scope.
Her most unusual choice may be No. 3 on the list: Alberto Gonzales.
“I am forced to put the former attorney general into his own category only because were I to attempt to round up his best legal whoppers of the calendar year, it would overwhelm the rest of the list,” she wrote.
A hat tip to Above the Law, which posted the story.
