Terror Presidency: Law And Judgment Inside The Bush Administration

The Terror Presidency is a thoughtful, if guarded, examination of the rationale behind the decisions made by the Bush administration to combat the war on terror. Mr. Goldsmith served as head of the Office of Legal Counsel which advises the Attorney General of the United States on legal matters. Initially sympathetic to the administration's genuine sense of fear and panic immediately after 9/11, the author finally resigned his post after questioning the legality of the broad torture statutes recently adopted by the government. In rewriting the torture laws, he ran afoul of David Addington, Dick Cheney's lawyer, who was rabid about expanding the power of the president to its fullest extent. If Mr. Goldsmith seems eminently fair in his judgments of the people with whom he worked, I rather uncharitably questioned the amount of rationalization it was necessary for him to expend before he finally understood that he was enabling some perilous precedents to be set in America. A very worthwhile read no matter what your politics may be.

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Distributor: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Publication Date: 04-13-2009
Pages: 272
Measurements: 8.25in X 5.5in X 1in X 1lb