Good News On The Most Powerful Position You Never Heard Of

The Office of Legal Counsel, in the Justice Department, is extremely powerful, yet little known. It’s lawyers basically give legal interpretations as to what the executive branch can and can’t do. They define the legal position of the administration. This is the office that was much misused during the Bush years and that created the legal structure for the administration. It’s here that Bush’s extremely broad, uncontrollable presidential powers were defined. It’s here, where John Yoo worked in 2001, that torture was redefined and started to infect our policies.

Today Obama named Dawn Johnson, Professor of Law at Indiana University, to become the head of the OLC. Here are some quotes from an article she wrote at Slate.com:

we must regain our ability to feel outrage whenever our government acts lawlessly and devises bogus constitutional arguments for outlandishly expansive presidential power. Otherwise, our own deep cynicism, about the possibility for a President and presidential lawyers to respect legal constraints, itself will threaten the rule of law--and not just for the remaining nine months of this administration, but for years and administrations to come...

OLC, the office entrusted with making sure the President obeys the law instead here told the President that in fighting the war on terror, he is not bound by the laws Congress has enacted.

And another Slate.com article

I'm afraid we are growing immune to just how outrageous and destructive it is, in a democracy, for the President to violate federal statutes in secret.

This is someone who does not mince words. She seems to genuinely be deeply outraged at Bush's trampling all over the constitution and the rule of law.

Of all the issues that Obama would face, executive power was one I was most worried about. Maintaining the US as a country where even the president has to respect the law, even when it’s difficult, is one the most important challenges we face. When it comes to deciding what is or is not legal for a president to do, precedents set have very lasting consequences way beyond the administration where they happen. Johnson really seems to get all this. This is really good news.