There's a reason John Yoo came on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to hawk his book.
He knew he could outmaneuver Jon Stewart with faulty logic, inconsistencies in his arguments, his legal training, and above all, his charm.
Watching part 1, part 2, and part 3 of the interview on the website, it was a terrible beauty of an interview.
Here was one of the most hated men in the world sitting opposite the beloved liberal comic. Hated because Yoo's legal interpretations gave Bush the cover to torture thousands of young people, killing many and causing irreparable psychological damage to all. I would go as far as to say that it is the policies of officials like Yoo (who sees himself as being lower down the echelon) that cause people to hate America. If American civilians or soldiers lose their lives to terrorism, I will include Yoo among those responsible for their deaths.
At the outset, Stewart acknowledged that unlike the Harvard and Yale educated Yoo, he wasn't a legal scholar, and that much of the book (which he hadn't finished reading) was gobbledy-gook (no racial epithet intended).
Stewart's first question was lobbed back in his face. He asked Yoo what it was like for so many people to feel so impassioned about Yoo when they didn't know him. Yoo replied calmly, identifying with Stewart, it must be similar to your experience.
The most aneurysm-inducing, dishonest response from Yoo in part 1 was that America had not looked at what torture was until the Bush administration asked Yoo for his opinion. Like the viewer, Stewart was incredulous, and rightly so: Yoo was lying out of his ass. With Stewart unable to pin Yoo down by giving specific examples, dates, and legal decisions, the issue was allowed to slowly merge into the next 15 minutes of this messy interview.
Yoo made a joke about slavery and Reid, hemp/marijuana and Berkeley, and even echoed Will Ferrell's "strategery" (when "humbly" admitting he wasn't a strategist and so could not comment on the wisdom of the Iraq war). Overall, Yoo came off as pretty "hip" and even Stewart had to accede "You are one of the most charming torture authors I have ever met."
We know from Seymour Hersh, Jane Mayer and others how brutal our "intelligence" agencies were with people that they had imprisoned. Children (boys, girls) were sodomized and molested, mothers raped in front of men, people put in coffins with insects, etc. Yoo evaded Stewart's question about the "gray area" between torture and regular questioning altogether. Why did Stewart allow it? What will Yoo say when people outside the US treat American POW this way?
Cleverly, the examples Yoo cited of American presidents were those the public considers the greatest presidents--Washington, Lincoln, FDR. He didn't defend Nixon. Yoo even went as far as to say that just as the left didn't like Bush, perhaps the right doesn't like Obama. Why mention these things? We can't hate Yoo if he's coming off as fair and balanced.
When Jon Stewart said that he was getting frustrated--and his body language confirmed this--Yoo calmly assured Stewart that he did not find the questions or Jon Stewart frustrating. No shit. Ali didn't find Liston frustrating, either. Stewart could barely look at Yoo in the eye.
Again and again, Stewart just talked on and on, getting lost in his own sentences, not getting anywhere. It was as though he were compensating for his inexpertise in the law. Yoo just watched, amused.
Stewart was not prepared to talk about Just War theory or terrorism. He allowed Yoo to give a lecture on "unconventional war" in part 3 of the interview.
It was like watching a video of how to deal with critical feedback from your boss. Acknowledge your shortcomings. Don't make excuses. Don't lose your temper. Validate the criticisms.