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Fantastic OLC appointment by Obama

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    Fantastic OLC appointment by Obama

    Stalwart executive overreach opponent Dawn Johnsen gets the top job. Now, obviously, just because he appointed her it doesn't mean he's going to be following her past recommendations, but it's still extremely encouraging.
    In fact, the ones at Justice who didn't last are the officials (like Goldsmith) who dared to say "no" to the President - which, by the way, is OLC's core job description
    Here is a partial answer to my own question of how should we behave, directed especially to the next president and members of his or her administration but also to all of use who will be relieved by the change: We must avoid any temptation simply to move on. We must instead be honest with ourselves and the world as we condemn our nation's past transgressions and reject Bush's corruption of our American ideals. Our constitutional democracy cannot survive with a government shrouded in secrecy, nor can our nation's honor be restored without full disclosure.

    #2
    Fantastic OLC appointment by Obama

    What's OLC?

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      #3
      Fantastic OLC appointment by Obama

      Office of Legal Counsel?

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        #4
        Fantastic OLC appointment by Obama

        (I looked it up)

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          #5
          Fantastic OLC appointment by Obama

          haha, yeah, me too.

          By delegation from the Attorney General, the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel provides authoritative legal advice to the President and all the Executive Branch agencies. The Office drafts legal opinions of the Attorney General and also provides its own written opinions and oral advice in response to requests from the Counsel to the President, the various agencies of the Executive Branch, and offices within the Department. Such requests typically deal with legal issues of particular complexity and importance or about which two or more agencies are in disagreement. The Office also is responsible for providing legal advice to the Executive Branch on all constitutional questions and reviewing pending legislation for constitutionality.

          All executive orders and proclamations proposed to be issued by the President are reviewed by the Office of Legal Counsel for form and legality, as are various other matters that require the President's formal approval.

          In addition to serving as, in effect, outside counsel for the other agencies of the Executive Branch, the Office of Legal Counsel also functions as general counsel for the Department itself. It reviews all proposed orders of the Attorney General and all regulations requiring the Attorney General's approval. It also performs a variety of special assignments referred by the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General.

          The Office of Legal Counsel is not authorized to give legal advice to private persons.

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            #6
            Fantastic OLC appointment by Obama

            Hilzoy is similarly pleased with the pick, and has more detail on her view of the OLC's role.

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              #7
              Fantastic OLC appointment by Obama

              This looks inspired, if it happens, as does Panetta if Dianne Feinstein shuts the fuck up.

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                #8
                Fantastic OLC appointment by Obama

                Paul Krugman does not agree with you.

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                  #9
                  Fantastic OLC appointment by Obama

                  Not that there's a field in which I [i]don't[i/] give credence to Paul K, but that seems like a less substantive critique than I might have feared when I clicked the link.

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                    #10
                    Fantastic OLC appointment by Obama

                    This seems a fair and detailed account of the controversy.

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                      #11
                      Fantastic OLC appointment by Obama

                      I find that Krugman does that from time to time. Instead of offering the sort of rigorous, statistics-based argument that he's good at (at least I assume he is. He's got a PhD in economics and what not), he provides half-ass pop psychology.

                      As for Gupta. Lefties are annoyed that he's not pro-single payer, but neither is Obama, or congress or, I'm afraid, the majority of voting Americans. So that's a moot point.

                      By picking a guy from TV, Obama seems to be admitting that he sees the Surgeon General's role as primarily being a spokesperson and salesman for healthy habits and what not.

                      As far as that goes, he's probably ok, but just because Gupta is a brain surgeon doesn't mean he's an expert on public health. The public tends to give anyone in a white coat a lot more creedance than they ought to. Medicine as a whole, not to mention a specific sub-speciality of surgery, is only a tiny part of the spectrum of problems that make up Public Health.

                      The Surgeon General is, technically at least, in charge of the Public Health Service. The PHS is a group of medical professionals who have regular bureaucrat jobs in various health-related agencies of the government like CMS and FDA but they also wear fancy uniforms very simular to the navy (the PHS was born out of the navy. I think Teddy Roosevelt founded it. Or maybe it was Wilson, I forget). I think the ideas is that, in the case of a crisis, the president can call on them to do something. What, I'm not sure, exactly...but the point is that they cover all aspects of public health, not just medicine. So preferably, the Surgeon General should have a PhD in public health.

                      I'm not comfortable with celebrity doctors in general. Medicine is such a massive and complex field that nobody can be an expert on any more than one fairly small part of it (except for the Medical Officers that serve on the USS Enterprise; Bones and Crusher were both omnicompetant) and yet at lot of these guys go on the tube or write books to pontificate about every conceivably health issue and make a lot of money doing it. Dr. Oz, for example, - a guy I've interviewed before he was famous on Oprah - is no doubt a brilliant cardiac surgeon, but I wouldn't go to a psychiastrist for a bypass surgery, so I wouldn't take psychiatry advice from him.

                      Then again, at least he's a real doctor, unlike Dr. Phil. And despite the limitations of his speciality, he's not a quack, unlike Dr. Andrew Weil.

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                        #12
                        Fantastic OLC appointment by Obama

                        Now Lederman has been tapped for OLC. Say what you like about Obama, he sure knows good lawyers.

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