The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration [Hardcover]

Jack Goldsmith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 10, 2007

A central player's account of the clash between the rule of law and the necessity of defending America.

Jack Goldsmith's duty as head of the Office of Legal Counsel was to advise President Bush what he could and could not do...legally. Goldsmith took the job in October 2003 and began to review the work of his predecessors. Their opinions were the legal framework governing the conduct of the military and intelligence agencies in the war on terror, and he found many—especially those regulating the treatment and interrogation of prisoners—that were deeply flawed.

Goldsmith is a conservative lawyer who understands the imperative of averting another 9/11. But his unflinching insistence that we abide by the law put him on a collision course with powerful figures in the administration. Goldsmith's fascinating analysis of parallel legal crises in the Lincoln and Roosevelt administrations shows why Bush's apparent indifference to human rights has damaged his presidency and, perhaps, his standing in history. 8 pages of photographs

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Chilling. . . . The portrait of the Bush administration that Mr. Goldsmith draws in this book is a devastating one. . . . Illuminating.” (Michiko Kakutani - New York Times )

“An important book—a genuine service to national interest—on several levels.” (Timothy Rutten - Los Angeles Times ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Book Description

The New York Times Bestseller --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition edition (September 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393065502
• ISBN-13: 978-0393065503
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #697,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars There Could Have Been More October 24, 2007

By Edwin C. Pauzer VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

At first, I was skeptical about a book that was two hundred sixteen pages, and covered only seven months of the author's life, but the title of Chapter 1: The New Job, and the first couple of sentences had a sense of intrigue, and captured my interest. I had the distinct intuition that the author would be an engaging writer and I was not disappointed.

Jack Goldsmith, conservative lawyer and law professor tells us of his appointment as Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel to the Justice Department under John Ashcroft.

The Counsel is made up of lawyers who analyze the legal ramifications of a policy the president may want to consider or promulgate. They submit their opinions on the same, and its legality. In a post 9/11 atmosphere, Goldsmith describes a White House that is anxious to expand its powers so it may fight terrorism unimpeded. This is motivated by a constant stream of intelligence that provides a daily diet of threats and plots against the USA, and a vice president's belief that any threat, no matter how marginal, must be taken as an imminent threat.

With Goldsmith's appointment in October of 2003, he began to offer his legal opinion on a number of issues. He defended these opinions at White House meetings that included the President's counsel, Alberto Gonzalez, the ever-present Vice President's Counsel, David Addington, and John Yoo who wrote several opinions giving the president carte blanche to implement virtually any policy he wanted. David Addington's long time conservatism and association with Dick Cheney gives him a great deal of power and influence.... He is equally abrasive and uncompromising, insisting that presidential decisions should be without limits, and his actions not subject to the scrutiny or knowledge of the Congress or citizens of the US. He dismisses American allies saying, "They don't have a vote."

This is what eventually gets Goldsmith in a squeeze, and enhances his perception by others that he is not a team player. He begins to review some earlier opinions made shortly after 9/11. These opinions are about enemy combatant status and the legal limits of torture. He advocates that these opinions should be reversed, which alienates him from C.I.A. who have been operating under guidelines that they believed would have left them immune from prosecution. With Goldsmith's assertion that previous positions were legally untenable, this leaves several people at several levels open to legal action--retroactively. Hence, the hostility toward the author, who feels he has no option but to resign.

Then abu-Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay unfold after he suggests reversal of opinions regarding torture and treatment. He contends that secrecy, failure to inform, and keeping Congress and the public out of the loop make it appear the government was acting illegally or immorally, a perception he contends is false. He also makes a strong point that the more success the administration had in preventing a second attack, that it "had an equally self-defeating effect of enhancing public skepticism about the reality of the threat."

The author closes by comparing the executive excesses and motives of Lincoln and FDR who were far more calculating and intuitive about public feeling and reaction. He illustrates several examples of their successful attempts through, guile, insight, and even deceit at expanding their power to preserve our freedom rather than a naked grab for power. He is very persuasive in showing the reader how President Bush's go-it-alone policies, operating in secrecy, lack of cooperation with Congress and other agencies, are ultimately self-defeating, less than pragmatic, and add to the public's mistrust of his office.

Goldsmith brought some excellent points to light. There is no doubt that he is a devout conservative and writes well and convincingly. I simply did not feel there was sufficient information to rate this book higher. This was only an appetizer, and I was looking for a feast.

This is a "one-day" book. I wish there had been more.

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85 of 100 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars 9/11: Bush/Cheney Blinked, and bin-Laden Won September 16, 2007

By Steve Koss VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

After serving the Bush II administration for an entire ten months as head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from October 2003 to August 2004, Jack Goldsmith has offered up a recap and post-mortem on the major issues with which he was confronted during those 300-odd days. As it turns out, however, they were critical days, and the issues were equally critical: terrorist seizure, confinement, and methods of interrogation as well as the NSA's secret monitoring of communications.

Much of THE TERROR PRESIDENCY is devoted to the arcana of Geneva Conventions and Protocols concerning torture, Presidential/Executive branch wartime powers, and dissection of the weak legal structure upon which lawyer John Yoo authorized and approved earlier Bush II administration OLC opinions concerning those issues. With this subject matter comes, of course, the infinite (or is it infinitesimal?) parsing of words and phrases and nuances over which only a lawyer can get enthused. Readers looking for juicy insider stories about the Bush Presidency will find these discussions off-putting, to be charitable.

However, hidden among the legalistic treatises are some remarkable, if all too briefly discussed, gems as well as some truly troubling presumptions. On a somewhat academic level, Mr. Goldsmith provides a badly needed sense of historical perspective regarding the usurpation of additional Executive Branch powers during wartime. The author repeatedly compares and contrasts the post-9/11 actions of George W. Bush with those of Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War and FDR during World War II. On the one hand, the actions of those earlier Presidents provide a degree of historical cover for President Bush. At the same time, Mr.... Goldsmith makes clear the enormous difference between Lincoln's and FDR's open, concisely defined, condition motivated, and carefully limited actions and the paranoically secretive, broadly defined, philosophically motivated, and ostensibly permanent actions of Bush II. "The power to manage the vast, whirring machinery of government derives from individual skills as persuader, bargainer, and leader," Goldsmith admirably quotes Arthur Schlesinger. Contrast this statement with "Bush the decider," the uncompromiser, the ignorer of allies, the partisan, and the gut reactor who speaks to and receives his guidance from "a higher authority."

Better still are the occasional first-hand accounts of events in the inner workings of the Bush Administration following the events of 9/11. Regretably, Mr. Goldsmith is a bit too much of a tease, opening the shutters ever-so-briefly before jamming them closed again with lawyerly circumspection. Nevertheless, John Yoo comes off as irresponsible, Alberto Gonzalez as a feckless featherweight, and John Ashcraft as more astute and statesmanlike than one would have thought. David Addington, Dick Cheney's chief assistant, becomes the true villain in this piece, an imperious blowhard and spiteful bully whose favorite argument regarding homeland security appears to center on threatening anyone who disagrees with him that they will be held responsible for 100,000 deaths in the next terror attack on U.S. soil. So much for the Constitution when fear rules.

And that is the true revelation in THE TERROR PRESIDENCY, as suggested by the book's very name. Goldsmith suggests convincingly that virtually every national security action of the Bush/Cheney administration since 9/11 has been motivated by fear of another attack. More specifically, fear of the political damage that would result from being blamed for not stopping the next attack. Goldsmith asserts clearly that fear of a second attack trumped every other consideration, legal or otherwise. In other words, by having three airplanes fly into three buildings on American soil, Osama bin-Laden changed the dynamic of American democracy and the manner in which the Constitution is applied to Presidential powers and American civil liberties.

Most horrifying of all, Goldsmith perceives this to be a near permanent state of affairs, and he conjures up the prospect of devastating attacks without ever mentioning mushroom clouds. "For generations the Terror Presidency will be characterized by unremitting fear of devastating attack, an obsession with preventing the attack, and a proclivity to act aggressively and preemptively to do so." A secretive Presidency is unilaterally and secretively making tradeoffs between perceived security and lost civil liberty without public discussion or Congressional consent. In essence, Bush/Cheney and the American government blinked, giving bin-Laden the ultimate terrorist victory of altering for the worse the governmental behavior and society of the target.

THE TERROR PRESIDENCY suffers from a surfeit of legalese and self-justification, and some readers will likely find either or both off-putting. Yet despite Mr. Goldsmith's overemphasis on legalisms and underreporting of the inner workings of the Bush Administration during the critical months following 9/11, this book sheds some disturbing new light on this Administration's motives and modus operandi. Read more ›

35 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bubble Presidency September 30, 2007

By Jon Hunt

Format:Hardcover

Countless people on the outside have accused the Bush administration of being isolated and immune from public perception. Jack Goldsmith's riveting new book, "The Terror Presidency" not only confirms these fears but adds a new level of questions about the Bush White House....the author was there for many months and his first hand account is invaluable. Make no mistake about it, Goldsmith is a conservative and in many ways applauds Bush's views of a strong presidency but his parting of the ways with the current administration is proof enough that things are not well in our nation's Executive branch.

Goldsmith, who was head of the Office of Legal Counsel from October, 2003 to July, 2004, paints a sobering picture of how policy is made and the contributing factors to it. He tells us that the administration is surrounded by lawyers who often suggest how policy should be made, even though many of them are simply out of their element of expertise and fail to take in other factors such as public opinion and relations with Congress. Indeed, the most damning comment Goldsmith makes is that the White House, rather than debating what is the right course of action, settles for, essentially, what they can get away with, legally. I suspect that when Bush leaves office in January, 2009, much more of Goldsmith's observations will see the light of day.

The author writes a dry, but serious book. The narrative is not colorful but his assessments more than pop off the page. A chapter on counter-terrorism is worth the whole book, but his chastisement of how lawyers have infiltrated the process of decision-making is nothing less than profound. Did we know this? No! Goldsmith, an academic at heart, parallels Bush with FDR......the comparisons couldn't be more stark with Goldsmith underscoring again and again in his book that failure to get the public on board with the war in Iraq and failure to get Congress to help legitimize the whole shebang has been the abject undoing of the last six and a half years. Summing it up, even before the book nears its conclusion, Goldsmith says, "it was said hundreds of times in the White House that the President and Vice President wanted to leave the presidency stronger than they found it. In fact they seemed to have achieved the opposite". Words for posterity, no matter how Bush wishes his legacy to be.

I highly recommend "The Terror Presidency". It's an insider's view of things that give this book a solid and firm ground on which to make the case of why the Bush administration overreaches and continues to do so. In the meantime, read this book....it's the best in peeling away the layers of Bush and how he got there along the way. Read more ›