Dear Dead Days

In his latest bid to wrest the title of “dumbest fucking guy on the planet” away from Doug Feith, John Yoo announces there were “no serious national security threats” to the United States in the 1970s, and that this is why Congress was able to place certain restrictions on presidential power.

Sounds about right. Putting aside the nuclear arsenals of the USSR and China, and the ceaselessly reiterated threat of Soviet expansionism, all I can think of is numerous attacks by the Black Liberation Army; a deadly bombing campaign by Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional; numerous bombings by the Weather Underground, including their 1975 attack on the U.S. State Department; the December 29, 1975 bombing of LaGuardia Airport, which killed 11 people; the Mayaguez incident; two assassination attempts against Gerald Ford by members of the Manson Family; Samuel Byck‘s 1974 attempt to kill Nixon by flying a hijacked plane into the White House; and the Alphabet Bomber’s deadly 1974 attack on Los Angeles International Airport (he also plotted to kill Nixon with nerve gas, and had 25 pounds of sodium cyanide in his house).

And countless terrorist attacks on America’s allies all over the world.

But other than that…

(Hat tip: Corrente.)

UPDATE: RMJ addresses the rest of Yoo's argument.