John Yoo, as a member of George W. Bush's Office of Legal Counsel, argued strongly that the President has the right to ignore US laws and foreign treaties when it came to torture of prisoners. There's a mess of legal theory behind it, but in essence he argued, and Bush agreed, that national security was so important that the President had a free hand.
Today in the National Review, Yoo argues that President Obama should respect the law and tradition, and should not have named Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau through a recess appointment because the Senate was kind of not in recess.
So again, the President can torture whoever he deems to call a terrorist, but our values are undermined by not respecting some ridiculous technicality over just how in recess the Senate is.
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