I hold no brief for John Yoo, the Berkeley law professor and former Bush administration official who wrote the loathsome “torture memo,” but what justification is there for Brad DeLong accusing Yoo of “participating in a conspiracy to torture goatherds from Afghanistan who have been sold to the military by clan enemies falsely claiming they are members of Al Qaeda”:

I cannot help but think that it is time for some appropriate arm of the university that is expert enough to have an informed view to consider the matter, and to advise me and the rest of the faculty (a) why John’s memo of March 14, 2003 does not, despite appearances, rise to the level of participating in a conspiracy to torture goatherds from Afghanistan who have been sold to the military by clan enemies falsely claiming they are members of Al Qaeda…

There is so much to object to about what Yoo did and wrote — why suggest without proof that he wanted to torture innocent people? The fact that innocent people were tortured as a result of Yoo’s memo does not mean that he intended that outcome to occur. It’s the same rhetorical sleight of hand at work in Eric Alterman’s suggestion that President Bush has a “preference for allowing poor kids to get sick and die” for opposing the expansion of children’s health insurance or in conservative rhetoric accusing opponents of the Iraq war of being “pro-Saddam.”