Transcript of the program Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane.

Date: Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Location: WHYY studios, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Guests: Will Bunch vs. Brian Tierney

Topic: Should the Philadelphia Inquirer allow John Yoo to have a monthly op-ed column?

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Marty Moss-Coane: Last Fall, John Yoo’s commentaries called Closing Arguments, began appearing monthly in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Yoo had worked for the Bush administration and was one of the authors of the now notorious torture memos that were released earlier this year by the Obama administration.

These legal documents said that fighters captured in Afghanistan and held at Gitmo were not protected by the Geneva Conventions. They also gave legal approval to water boarding and other harsh interrogation techniques and to the Bush administration’s warrant-less wiretap program.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial page editor Harold Jackson, the paper got complaints when the paper started running Yoo’s columns. It really heated up after the Philadelphia Daily News’ Will Bunch weighed in on his blog Attytood calling on his bosses to fire Yoo.

Will Bunch joins us.  Will Bunch is a Senior Writer at the Philadelphia Daily News. His blog is called Attytood and he has a book called Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future.

Also with us is Brian Tierney, publisher and owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer who suggested the paper hire John Yoo.

1-888-477-9499

Marty Moss-Coane: There are plenty of conservative commentators. You wanted Yoo. You selected John Yoo. Why?

Brian Tierney: Well, I suggested John Yoo. In the end it was Harold Jackson, who runs our editorial page, who is a Pulitzer Prize winning editorial writer. I suggest a lot of things…whether it be throughout the paper and occasionally some of them get accepted. John Yoo is a brilliant lawyer and legal scholar. He grew up in the Philadelphia area. His story is a terrific story in terms of immigrant parents that come to this country, etc. Went to Yale. Was Law Review at Yale Law School as well. Was on the staff at Berkeley. He was a tenured professor at Berkeley in his early 30s, late 20s. He’s brilliant. He then worked for the U.S. Supreme Court as a clerk. He went back to Berkeley. Came back to Washington. Went back to Berkeley then was part of the Justice Department. So, He is an internationally recognized constitutional scholar. And He first started to write for us in 2005

MMC: An Occasional commentator.

BT: an occasional commentator, as he appears in the New York Times, as he appears in the Wall Street Journal etc. We have really been excited to find people who have a national, international perspective, if you will, but also have a local connection to our region of Philadelphia.
So for instance, this is totally unrelated. Lisa uh….

MMC: Lisa Scottoline

BT; Scottoline. Is a terrific mystery writer. She also has a column, every week, in our newspaper. We’ve been trying to find those sorts of things. John Yoo certainly fit in that category and has been a columnist with us on a monthly basis. Very rare when you get to it. 12 times a year. Since October. And it wasn’t until my good friend Will. Whom I defend and think the world of over here, started to write about it a few weeks ago that it became…and it was good to use the word contretemps because I took French for 14 years and I’ve never been able to work it in.

MMC: this is NPR. After all

BT. This is a contretemps.

MMC: But let me throw out the cloud that has hung over John Yoo which has to do with. He’s one of the authors of these. Now called Torture Memos. In fact, the editorial page of the Inquirer calls these torture memos. The fact that he’s so implicated in this. Does that in any way get you to rethink this idea of having John Yoo write commentaries.

BT. No, No, It really doesn’t. I mean everyone knew what his role was in the Justice Department for quite some time and the fact that. He hasn’t been indicted or he hasn’t been convicted of anything. It’s funny. I’m going to be blunt with you. I’m not encouraging more emails. But in terms of the amount of traffic that I’ve received on this. Issue. Although we talk about it a certain amount, in terms of really, in terms of my mailbox. Not a huge amount mail. And also I as publisher of this paper, like for instance, I’ve received hundreds of emails a year about Will or Dick Polman that they are too darned liberal. I mean 99 to 1 of the comments I get from readers is that our paper is too liberal. And I’ve never gone to Will or his editor or Dick Polman and said tone it down. I wouldn’t want anyone like Will or Dick Polman to at all think. Gee is Brian trying to send me a message. I want them to paint in the boldest of all possible colors. I want a John Yoo to come in and…not to defend the memorandums which is what he hasn’t been doing…but just talking about issues of politics. Constitutional law. Where he is a noted expert. And I’m all for that. I want our editorial page at the end of a week or two weeks I want every person who picks it up to love certain things and absolutely hate certain things. If you can go two weeks with looking at our editorial page and not see something you hated we haven’t done our job.

MMC: Let me turn to you Will Bunch. You in part started this contretemps to continue that word.

Will Bunch: I didn’t take French.

MMC: this debate, this controversy over John Yoo. What is your objection to his commentaries in the paper.

WB: well first of all. I just want to say before I start. I want to say it’s great that Brian is willing to be here with me. One of his employees to discuss it. The point I want to make about it. I think it speaks incredibly highly of the values of this institution. That we are an institution believes in letting people talk. And believes in opinions and rough elbows at times in letting people have their say. And Brian is absolutely correct in that no one in four years of blogging. I’ve taken some very opinionated ?sounds like he says “texts” or “attacks”? no one has ever said tone it down.

BT: (says in a joking tone something like) some against me occasionally.

(Laughter)

WB: I’m pretty careful with that. Why I’ve been able to do it is I’m smart about it.

MMC: But you don’t feel like your job is in jeopardy by criticizing Yoo. We are sitting next to Brian Tierney.

WB. No and I never did. Cause I know the kind of place this is. But. That kind of cuts to John Yoo as a transition. I think John Yoo is an anomaly I think it’s something I was very disappointed to learn that John Yoo was a monthly columnist. Because I thought it went counter to the values that we generally do have here. Number one. And Number two and the values we should have. The reason I spoke out about John Yoo. This is my core issue. This is why after 25 years of very conventional journalism that I became a blogger and a slightly different tact to my career. I was kind of radicalized by some of the things that were going on in this country over the last decade. And I thought journalism had an unfortunate role in that. And I though journalism was too passive. I think we have an obligation to be fair and let people know about all sides but I think there are core things that we need to defend. I think torture - getting to Yoo specifically - I think torture as an unconstitutional value. I think the core constitutional values, like free speech, like torture are critical.

MMC and that fact that he is one of the authors of as I said these now notorious torture memos that disqualifies him because of his call for torture? Not call for but certainly support of?

WB. You have to understand that the hiring of John Yoo is what they, in tennis they would call an unforced error. I think if the Inquirer or the Daily news where I work, if the papers are covering the issue of torture. Yes we need to know why the administration felt this was justified but I think as a broad editorial policy I think there’s an opportunity to take a more a moral stand, a more forceful stand. Harold Jackson himself wrote last week that torture can never be justified and um.

MMC - the fact that he was never indicted as Brian said. He certainly has been criticized and there’s been lots of questions raised about even his legal judicial philosophy.

WB. I think that he’s never been indicted can be a crutch. I think there are times when journalism can be a little more bold. I think we’ve been too passive. The core values are what basically have allowed newspapers to function. That is the Constitution, Free speech. When we say that torture on one hand (digital hiccup in Mp3) I think we’re losing that moral authority. The fact that he has not been indicted. That can be a crutch. One thing that I’ve learned in investigative reporting is a lot of times political people do, are things that are not technically against the law, and we write about them anyway because we want readers to know about them anyways. I think John Yoo is a classic case. I think most of us think that what was laid out in the torture memos, the position he took, was immoral.

MMC let me turn back to you Brian. And Looking at these memos. We’ve done whole shows about them but none the less. Do you ascribe to John Yoo’s view of the Constitution

BT. No. First of all I’m a non practicing attorney. I wouldn’t want to try to hold myself out to be an expert or have I read them in great detail. Other than when I read the various reports. I don’t want to take a stand cause I don’t think I’m competent to really take a stand on that or is it my role as publisher. My role as publisher is to make sure that there is this vibrant debate. There is this unbelievable buffet of ideas and they come from all over the spectrum and people who read it again…You know, For instance I read everyday the edition of the Inquirer and the Philadelphia daily news and the new york times too and have for a long, long time. Frank Rich is one of those guys who I seldom, Now this is not me as publisher but as Brian Tierney, I seldom agree with his point but I find myself compelled to read. Because it’s really well written and well reasoned. There are parts of it….I’ll learn from it. I like to expose myself to those ideas and what I want to make sure is that in this role as publisher where I kind of have the duty to our readers to set the table, if you will, there’s a diversity of opinions. I felt like our paper and a lot of papers sometimes don’t have a diversity of opinion. And that’s something we’ve tried to do. But as it relates to…You know I thought last week, the day that Dick Cheney, I thought David Broder had a good column, I was reading the Washington Post, but Dick Cheney and President Obama speaking at the same time was just a terrific…and If you read both of their speeches you have to say that both of them came at it from very interesting positions and that’s really wonderful part of America.

MMC - but is torture different. Whether you call it torture or enhanced interrogation techniques.

BT. I’m no expert at this but he wouldn’t call it torture. Ok.

MMC - no he doesn’t. and I would say that others have called it enhanced interrogation but we are talking about water boarding that we learned from the Red Cross report. People being thrown against walls. And what Yoo and others did was provide some, I think Will Bunch uses this word some legal cover to allow for those practices to take place.

BT to the extent that. You know. I’m a non practicing attorney, and I can’t have an opinion on it. And Will is not an attorney and I know he’s spoken to attorneys. You can’t just say I don’t really like it. It’s against the law. No, is, Was there a crime committed here. Was there..and some third party will adjudicate that. And will make that decision. And we’ll be looking at that as well. But I’m proud that our paper the Philadelphia inquirer is the only paper in America. Before I got there. A few weeks before I got there. That published the so called Danish Cartoons. Ok, there were people who thought they were too offensive and no other paper in America did it. And somebody before me made the decision to do it. And I’m really proud that - that’s part of our. This is our 180th year as a newspaper. The 3rd oldest newspaper. That that’s a part of our legacy. That we didn’t allow. You know. Because I still thought that was in the bounds of speech. I mean. Its. I don’t offer this up just to be clever but the speech that is most important speech for all of us to defend is speech we hate. Ok.

MMC - go ahead Will

BT That’s the most important speech.

MMC - we’re almost up on a break. And I’ll let you finish after the break. But go ahead.

WB. We’ll talk about this a little more after the break but John Yoo has free speech he has the right to walk outside and express his opinion. He has the right to use his own money and self publish a book. He has the right to find a publisher that wants to publish his views. Newspapers are an interesting position. We are basically a community enterprise. We have to be a part of the community and I think this whole John Yoo caper, demonstrates how we have sort of alienated ourselves from the community in trying to have this two way relationship with the community. I think the Yoo hiring was offensive to so many people I think we need to step back.
MMC - we need to take a very short break.

WHYY 90.9 FM Philadelphia station break taken here

MMC - Will, what about Brian’s argument. When you look at the pages of the editorial of the Inquirer newspaper. That’s where you do want to see a diverse array of opinions. You want to see debate and argument even if its sort of one column versus another

WB I do. I basically agree with that. One of things I really like about the internet is it is limitless. So you can be even more inclusive. More of a chance of two way conversation with readers. I think that’s great. When you talk about the op-ed page of a newspaper you are talking about a limited piece of real estate. Honestly. It’s a value piece of real estate. I think that any decision about who you hand the keys to that real estate, to use mix metaphors, is important. You know, Brian said that John Yoo is internationally recognized. Let’s be honest here. He’s internationally recognized for writing the torture memos. When you think about that - that just on its face sounds pretty awful. I never heard much about john yoo before the torture memos came out and Marty you probably didn’t either.

MMC we actually had john yoo on the program. He had written a book a couple of years ago.

WB. Oh right. That’s a good point. But he was not internationally known the way he is now. I think there are really there issues here. The fourth issue which I address is free speech. It’s not a free speech issue. I think it’s a journalism issue. I think there are three things. One is the morality of torture. By giving one of these pieces of op-ed real estate to somebody whose claim to fame is advocating for torture although some of the other things he has done like advocating that freedom of the press can be basically suspended during the war on terror. Type situation. Which I think is a pretty vague definition. Some of his others views are of concern too, but the torture memos is what he is most famous for and uh. You know - are newspapers normalizing torture. This has been in conversation that people have been having on the internet for a few years. I think it’s a really important one. Torture is against the law. You know the International Torture Convention was signed into law by Ronald Reagan. So it’s something, I’d like to think, it’s something that both parties can agree on that. And um, you now, basically when somebody….the torture memos he wrote justified activities that is both illegal and most of us find immoral. It’s a question of morality. There is a question of ethics. We haven’t talked about this much. But John Yoo is being investigated right now by the Justice Department for the ethics of his behavior in writing these torture memos. Was he basically twisting the law unnaturally to support the political positions of Dick Cheney and Cheney’s aides. And they are finding - that’s been leaked out to the press - is that he did do that. They are going to recommend that the State of Pennsylvania consider disbarment proceedings against John Yoo. That information to be fair didn’t come out until after John Yoo was given this one year contract by the Inquirer. When I said. I think I wrote. I think Yoo should be fired. That was probably in the middle of the night

MMC That’s what people do on blogs. I’ve read that stuff.

WB. The wonders of blogging what I meant to say is lets honor his contract because we believe in the rule of law at least here at Philadelphia but lets not publish him anymore. I think these ethical allegations bring a new twist to it. Just the third thing is.

MMC very quickly.

WB. Is John Yoo really of the community. I think that Brian kind of made a good point. You want a op-ed page that Lisa Scottoline and Michael Smerconish are two great examples of - about as Philadelphia as you can get. That have views about Philadelphia and the world. I think that’s great. I mean John Yoo grew up here. But he’s been away from here a long time. I’m just not really sure

BT. He has cheese steaks when he’s back in town.

(combined laughter)

WB. That changes everything. That changes everything.

MMC I appreciate you laying that out, But to you Brian Tierney. As you say. We’re talking about a year contract. He was hired officially in October. Do you feel any pressure to let that contract . Essentially make it a one year contract

BT. No not at all.

MMC If he gets disbarred
For instance. Would that be reason enough

BT I think it would be grossly unfair of me here who doesn’t know all of the facts. And the Justice Department hasn’t urged for him - as I’ve read the media - it has been some advocates - certain advocacy voices have said that he should be disbarred.
And it’s innuendo. All these sorts of things balled up. Boy isn’t that a ball of fact. No it’s
Still innuendo. In the end. So if those things would happen then we would take a different look at it.. but if those things don’t happen. And John Yoo is not writing about defending those memos. He’s talking about from his perspective as - on the faculty - a tenured member of the faculty of Berkeley - one of the great academic institutions in America. And for most people, One of the most liberal. So if he’s good enough for Berkeley how can he not be good enough for a voice at our table here. Here in Philadelphia. One of the things…yet. again I get a hundred to one I get complaints that our papers are too liberal. As probably the Boston Globe gets, and Steve ??? and other people like that get at different papers. But one of the things I have found. I don’t mean this in the wrong way Will but it’s the voices on the extreme left and extreme right who urge me to shut all the other guys up. For most people in the middle, the 85 percent in the middle, they are like, I don’t agree with the guy but let him speak. Give him a microphone once a month. I mean he’s not becoming the editorial page director. And it’s also interesting to remember and note that our editorial page under Harold Jackson has officially come out as our official position as a newspaper against these same memorandums etc. Our voice officially as we the Philadelphia inquirer 1829 has spoken. And I think its really something, says something great about our papers that. And for those of you who don’t live in the Philadelphia area on Philly.com you can read all this. As well. P-H-I-L-L-Y dot COM
A small plug there. That we have these kinds of voices. This vibrancy on our pages. Again at the end of two weeks or so I want everybody who picks it up to have loved something and to have absolutely have hated something then we’ll have done our job.

MMC You have though as some of your commentaries, commentators rather, besides John Yoo, there’s Rick Santorum the former Senator from Pennsylvania, Charles Krauthammer he’s a true blue conservative, Kevin Ferris another conservative, Michael smerconish who is sort of conservative-eee

BT. Dick Polman, we have Susan Estrich As well. I challenge anybody to look at over the course of a month of the three or so pieces a day on our opinion page to tell me that 85 percent of them aren’t left of center. And I would encourage anybody, and I would bet anybody a dollar that that’s the case.

MMC Will though, what about this idea that Brian put out - Look if he’s good enough for Berkeley - and Berkeley is certainly a liberal institution - or certainly was back in the 1960s. He has been published. I mean none of these people have backed away from John Yoo. If he’s good enough for them, why isn’t he good enough for the Philadelphia inquirer?

WB. Well I don’t want to go off on Berkeley. I think there are some second thoughts there. He’s a tenured member of the faculty at this point

MMC - So they couldn’t get rid of him anyways.

WB. Right. You know how that goes. You know I think there is a fascinating question here. Which is again I want to stress John Yoo is famous for the torture memos and he has written and maybe Brian misspoke he did actually write column a couple of months ago that was basically defending his memos and his actions. So he has used the Inquirer as a platform to defend that. Where do we place that in the continuum of issues. Is it like infrastructure funding and Obama’s stimulus plan or is it along the lines of something like racism or other types of violence. Violence against women as an example. Is torture in the category that we find that unacceptable that - for sure - you could find people - I mean you could find people - there are militia leaders in the greater Philadelphia area who advertise extreme views on race on antisemitism or whatever. Of course you wouldn’t publish them.

MMC but do you put John Yoo in the same category as a David duke for instance. Do you see his ideas as so egregious?

WB I think when his claim to fame is the torture memos and when he’s - when his voice is so deeply tied with advocating for torture then I think - it’s hard to equate exactly

BT He never made his claim to fame these memos. His claim to fame is that he’s on the faculty of Berkeley and has been for 15 years ever since his late 20s early…that he was a supreme court clerk. If you look at all these other things that he - he’s a constitutional scholar - Those who have an argument with him and with the previous administration say well that’s what he’s known for - That’s because that’s what you’re making him known for. But that is certainly not what defines him and I think its kind of …when you bell the cat to use that old expression in that sense then you can say gee can you hear what I’m hearing? Well, if you say that’s his claim to fame long enough - perhaps that’s what - but that isn’t what defined him. That isn’t why we hired him and he first appeared

MMC but if you are working for a presidential administration, it seems like no matter who the president is that’s sort of someone’s crowning achievement in their career. Even if you work at a prestigious university like Berkeley.

BT I would think so but I’m sure now that - what - he’s in his early 40s - that’s a period of his life - I think its really important to - Why - What me as publisher - it’s not to defend John Yoo or to criticize John Yoo. This is a fellow who some people don’t like him and certain people do. I want to come back to something Will said because I occasionally get emails on things like this about the voices that are quote offensive to our community. I think that’s a dangerous slippery slope because if the publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer in the 20s and 30s. He might have had advocacy for rights for African-Americans was offensive to the community but I would be one poor publisher if I said we did a poll and 65 percent feel this way, so therefore we’re going to silence these voices. I can’t run…I would be betraying 180 years of history of this paper for me to do that. And I’m not going to do it. So I can tell you right now that John Yoo, when his contract is up, and it’s a modest amount of money, when his contract is up.

MMC - is it less than Rick Santorum gets?

BT. You know I don’t even know what Santorum gets, to be honest with you,

WB - 1750.

BT. There. You can always get all the facts there. That’s the best place to get it. We’re very open. You know what’s so great about our business and your business as well is we talk about our problems. Unlike broadcast television, I mean what’s the biggest story in terms of broadcast television over say at one of the networks has been Katie Couric. You’ve never seen a story on CBS on Katie Couric. We talk about our problems, which is why this vibrant newspaper business that we have - has to continue.

WB. Marty, if I could just respond to one thing Brian said.

MMC - yes you can.

WB I thought Brian brought up a great example when he talked about this hypothetical publisher of the 30s or 40s talking about racism. I think that’s exactly my point. That publisher was not necessarily trying to go one hand and the other hand. You know on one hand some people in our community support racism and on one hand they don’t. That hypothetical publisher is taking a bold stand about what he found moral. That he found racism immoral. I think torture is exactly the same opportunity that racism. If you look back in history - this may be obscure for your (?sounds like he says non journalistic?) listeners, but people like Ralph McGill, the Atlanta Journal Constitution who are thought of as journalistic heroes from the 60s are people who took these moral stands on racism. I think torture is one of those issues of our times. This is our civil rights issue.

MMC and for that reason the paper should not have hired John Yoo in the first place and should let him go quietly into the night when his contract is up?

WB like I said, interview John Yoo when you write about torture. If you want to give him one op-ed - Why I Did What I Did - fine, give that guy that valuable real estate in our community - every month? I don’t think so.

MMC - do you see op-ed writers, columnists as having this valuable, perhaps even shrinking real estate. Brian Tierney?
BT I think it’s one of the most important parts of our paper. I think our news section under the direction of Bill Marimow, our Pulitzer prize winning editor, that calls it right down the middle, and at the editorial page, our opinion pages have to have a diversity of opinion. And again, you look at it, you like certain things, you kind of smile, you laugh, you get really mad at other things. That’s what we want to do. So it’s to have a diversity of opinions and we welcome them and I think we’ve achieved a lot more diversity on those pages over the last three years. I’m proud of that.

MMC the paper though has gotten criticized. You have had some support but I would say reading the New York Times and some of the articles, watching Stephen Colbert recently,

BT I loved the Colbert thing.

MMC well, he had all these headlines as written by John Yoo which is very Colbert. But nonetheless has this been good or bad for the paper. I realize that there is a certain philosophy that says all publicity is good. But has this really been good for the paper?

BT it’s been terrific for the paper. I think that anytime we stand up for the concept of, and we are known internationally for having the concept of diversity of opinions. Really bright people, controversial in certain sections, but you can’t argue with their bona fide. I think that’s great. If people, again, a lot of people don’t like what Will writes in Attytood as well as in the paper, I defend that to the max. I would never want to lose Will Bunch. He is such a critical voice to our paper and the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com. So, I want to have these things. One of the best things, if you go to Attytood is see the commentary back and forth and the way Will, with a sense of humor engages with these people who are really supportive or really angry about something. I’m just so proud that we have this, it’s not dull. That we’re not dull.

MMC - let me turn to you Will Bunch. And I know some have called for a boycott of the Philadelphia Inquirer. We should say the paper like other papers in this country is struggling but even as a free speech issue, is that something you would support?

WB no, Absolutely not. And I’ve written that. I think this whole experience can be great for the Inquirer and the Daily News and for the Philadelphia newspapers cause I think it can start a discussion. I think some issues that have simmered below the surface about what the role of a newspaper in a community is - this can be - I’m not saying it was good that they hired John Yoo, that they had to hire John Yoo to start this conversation but it’s here now. So, Let’s have it. There were about 50 to 100 people who were protesting. It was not a huge protest.

BT I organized bigger protests outside this building. And I had a better sound system in the early 90s. when it was for school choice.

WB. But I think Brian’s protests were in favor of Wawa, I’m not really sure what they were about.

(Laughter)

WB. But anyway, but the people were out there, I don’t think we should view these people as them. I think we should view them as us. These people are our readers in our community. They are liberal readers but they are part of our community. We should be inviting these people inside the building and talking to them.

BT I feel that way too. I agree 100%.

MMC - Perhaps I asked this before but let me go back to you Will. The fact that the paper has, as Brian says, created a marketplace where some of these issues can be discussed. You have an editorial board that talks about torture. And John Yoo as one of the authors

BT - it criticizes him

MCC of the torture memos. The fact that they were paper, letters to the editors that ran in the paper last week largely critical of the paper and the fact that you are sitting here talking about it as well. Does that tell you something about the openness, to at least discuss some of these issues?

WB absolutely. Lets keep it going. Absolutely.

MMC but what you’re saying about John Yoo, not to get Brian completely off the hook here, is because of his authorship of these memos, that that really does disqualify him?

WB right, we’re talking about this, and people are outside the building because of John Yoo’s actions, ethics, because of what he actually did. And I think we should still be talking about that. But I think the aftermath is good. I think, hiring Yoo, I’m not thrilled about. Obviously, as I said many times. But the more discussion we have - as the aftermath of this, the more back and forth we have, at this point, the better.

BT and the only place you can really get that debate is the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily news or at Philly.com. So I urge all of our people to buy the paper or go to the website and to participate in that debate.

MMC and why did I know you were going to do and say that? Lets take a very short break.

WHYY-FM 90.9 station break here.
MMC we have Cyril from Kensington joining us on Radio Times. Cyril go ahead.

Caller: I just wanted to bring up a point that Will made I passing that I think deserves more attention that’s the memo Yoo wrote in 2001 which stated that he thought First Amendment and speech rights may be subordinated to the overriding needs to wage war successfully. I was wondering if publisher Tierney, if he agrees with that legal opinion, and if he has in the past or would consider in the future acquiescing to the demands such as that. From the government.

BT No, I would never, I can tell you day to day we spend tens of thousands of dollars, in fact more than that, hundreds of thousands of dollars a day, defending every single day, defending DA’s who want records that they are not entitled to, government inquiries that they are not entitled to, we fight, in fact we spend a lot of money, this past week, there was a story in yesterday’s paper about an effort to open up records for a charter school. So, we are really on the side of free speech, more information that’s out there is the best disinfectant, if you will, in terms of our democracy is information. As it relates to, I’ve only seen media reports on what John Yoo allegedly wrote about that. So I honestly, I’m not trying to be cute here, I don’t feel competent to defend one way or the other. It isn’t why we hired him.

MMC. go ahead Will. How do you reconcile that Brian Tierney says Oh, we’re for openness and a free press and hiring John Yoo for his commentaries.

WB it’s a little hard to reconcile. We talk about newspapers, listening to all voices, and playing things down the middle, historically that’s not true when it comes to free speech and freedom of the press. Like Brian said, newspapers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying state lawmakers, supposedly objective newspapers, lobbying for a free press because supposedly that’s our core value. There are lots of conservatives, Michael Smerconish who wrote the book Muzzled, is a great example of a conservative who believes very strongly in free speech, freedom of the press, John Yoo is not. And you have to wonder about that.

MMC but does that disqualify him as a commentator from your perspective?

WB. Maybe not disqualify him because it’s not, unlike torture, which I think is illegal is in a different category. It just kinds of piles on about the questions you might have about him. I mean Harold Jackson said he had misgivings about offering this contract to John Yoo and I think those are some of his reasons he had misgivings. As I wrote, these misgivings were before we knew about the torture memos. More about the justice department and the justice department’s internal investigation of John Yoo found that his ethics to be lacking.

MMC Brian lets say there are reports that come out this summer and it is determined that what John Yoo did was unethical, he’s going to be disbarred, would that be the kinds of actions against him that would cause the paper to remove him as a commentator?

BT I don’t want to speculate. I think if there were certain issues such as that that came through. We would review the facts and if that was the case. And I don’t expect that to be the case, but if that was the case we would take a look at that and look at it fresh. I can tell you that absent that um, you know, it would be Harold’s call in the end, but absent any other kinds of procedures and it is in some circles unpopular then I would hope we would keep him as a columnist because again. You are right, I did misspeak he did write one column about that, but his last one was about who Obama might pick for Souter’s spot. And he has unique positions, in that role cause he’s served in the Supreme Court as a clerk, he has been at the Justice Department. So, I mean it’s a unique perspective to have.

MMC one of the criticisms…

BT and his stuff appears in the New York Times. Just a few weeks ago there was a piece by John Yoo, so It’s not as if he has some Scarlet letter on him. We’re the only place in America that publishes his words. That’s not the case.

MMC but he is a monthly columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. And he is identified

BT not only at the Philadelphia Inquirer but also at Philly.com

MMC there you go. But he’s not identified anything beyond Inquirer columnist. So there is nothing about his association with the Bush administration or anything else.

BT that’s, Whatever it is, as every word in that paper is, is decided by an editor not by me. So that’s Harold Jackson. I no way interfere with the editorial policy and Will knows - either at the Daily News or the Inquirer.

MMC but Will do you think he should be, there should be more identifiers for John Yoo if he’s going to be carried in the papers.

WB. Well that’s a little bit, Obviously I’m not directly involved in that. But as I recall the last identifier, identified him as a Berkeley law professor and as somebody who law clerked for Justice Thomas and didn’t mention that he worked in the Bush Administration and I think that’s kind of odd. That’s kind of like, if you had a column by Al Gore and didn’t mention that he was Vice President of the United States for 8 years. You know so, so that’s uh….(inaudible word) they are probably fixing that.

MMC let me get Arlene from Rosemont.

(silence)

Lets try Abe from Rowan, NJ

Caller: Hi, I’m enjoying the show. I just have a question for Will. As I teach philosophy one of the issues we always bring up about ethics is torture. In the context of utilitarianism where the ends justify the means. I ask my students, if the purpose is morality to make the world better and you can make the world better by torturing someone maybe its justified. So, will says one of the major issues is torture is unjustified, I’m just curious I’m wondering how he would respond to such an argument.

WB, yeah I’m happy to respond. It’s funny that you mention that. That’s an interesting point. I just recently reread the international convention on torture that President Reagan signed in 1988. and it makes very clear that torture, that there’s no circumstance to justify torture. I mean the popular phrase on the right is this ticking time bomb scenario which I think they picked up from watching too many episodes of 24. this is the common scenario. I mean the law, the international law, which has been ratified by the United States which basically makes it an American law. Is clear on this, even gaining information about what the enemy is up to - there’s no justification for torture. I think that’s right. You have done whole shows about torture. We could do that, but I mean real quickly. It’s been pretty discredited as a way of getting good information compared to legal interrogation methods.

MMC including by interrogators themselves.

WB. Mainly be interrogator themselves. It’s prone into doing false confessions. There have been some very disturbing reports in the last couple of weeks that haven’t gotten enough attention about the idea that getting information that might be false about Al Queada’s connections to Iraq and possibly coming up with a justification for an invasion of Iraq. At some point may become more of a motivation for these torture practices which is highly immoral. I think Abe raises a good question but I think torture its illegal in any circumstance, it doesn’t work, and was misused for the wrong purposes by the Bush Administration.

MMC Brian there has been some controversy, or some question I should say

BT about contretemps?

(laughter)

MMC - well I won’t do that again. But there has been some controversy about whether John Yoo was brought in sub rosa. I’m sorry about as well, but next thing people knew was that he was a commentator and it wasn’t officially announced and it was done in a sneaky kind of way. Can you speak to that?

BT That’s totally false. You’ll see that we didn’t do this in any different way. Unfortunately, we’re not the marketing machine we’d like to be in terms of announcing things in press releases every time we add a new column. So, that’s just not true. Again, he’s appeared. He was appearing occasionally since the fall, I guess October, he’s been in monthly. It’s not a lot of money. We have 3 or 4 opinion pieces a day. Over the course of a week, when you add in Sunday, it’s probably 25 or 26, it’s a hundred a week, er a month. It’s one. What’s great about a newspaper unlike other things you can turn the page and just not read it if you don’t like it. You can go onto the next one.

MMC but is it one too many Will?

WB. Yeah. In my opinion as I’ve tried to state. Yes it is.

MMC let me get Joe from West Philadelphia to join us.

(silence)

MMC we seem to be having some technical problems here. You don’t have these problems at a newspaper.

WB. Never.

BT. Joe probably wanted to defend John Yoo and was being silenced

(laughter)

MMC but did you brian. Did you want some sort of a marquee commentator is that what you were looking for? Someone with a big name?

BT yeah. like I said a lot of, like Michael Smerconish who is in both papers now, Lisa Scottoline is another example, Santorum, Dick Polman, others Susan Estrich, who recently started with us yesterday without any big press release. I love the idea. I hate when I go to certain towns, I pick up the paper, the editorial pages are really boring. There’s a lot of kind of poorly thought out, kind of half way, half baked theories and ideas. So we like to have some big names, we love it when they are unique to our paper because I think that that’s as one of the main regional newspapers in America we should be doing some unique things and we like to do that as well. And that’s part of it. And quite frankly I really appreciate the controversy. I love the fact that people are saying gee there’s something interesting at the Philadelphia Inquirer. I hate this, I love that. But they are at least noticing it. Because for years, they weren’t noticing the Philadelphia Inquirer before our local ownership took over.

MMC go ahead Will

WB. Rather than respond, I would carrier it one step further I think one thing a lot of progressive liberals, what every you want to call them, noted about the Inquirer is I think it would be great, I’ll use this time to lobby, I think the Inquirer should go a step further on this. Susan Estrich is fine but she’s kind of a what a lot of liberals consider a Fox News Democrat. Kind of not really…

BT I didn’t pick her either. Harold did.

WB. But um, a Rick Santorum, John Yoo to some extent, Michael Ferris, these guys are all conservative bomb throwers, if I can use the expression, they are people who play to win. I don’t mean that in a negative. That’s a bad choice of words. In a sense, I mean that in a sense of making explosive arguments that they argue forcefully for what they are trying to say. I would love to see the Inquirer add a true progressive. That same stance, who’s not slightly to the left corporate journalist type like Susan Estrich type, somebody who is a real rabble rousers on the left. I think that would make for a great discussion. I hope to see that in the near future.

BT you come up with those names and give them to Harold and give them to me. And I really feel sincerely

WB I will. And I’ll solicit my readers.

MMC This is a quote from The New Republic. To you Brian, Then I’m going to try the phone calls again. And this is from Michael Schaffer, I think that’s how you say his name. critical of the decision for the Inquirer for the reasons I think that Will has outlined here but also said that Yoo has been a boring columnist, a run of the mill neocon who tosses out only the most predictable brick bats against the Obama administration. I guess you can’t please everyone.

BT first I won’t opine on that particular paragraph. That you read. In terms of the quality of writing. It’s interesting that you bring up The New Republic. When I was in college, I subscribed to The New Republic from the time I was 18 years of age, all the way through a couple of years ago, when I found I wasn’t able to read as many magazines as I would like. I frequently disagreed with it. I never read, what was the one Buckley had? The other one. Because I felt it was so

WB. National Review

BT I thought it was poorly written. I knew what they were going to say, what I liked about what The New Republic did for 30 years when I was subscribing to it, was that it provoked me and lots of it I wouldn’t agree with it but at the end I would Say that is a really well written, well reasoned, things. That’s what I want us to be. And I think once we say, I don’t like your opinion, you can’t be here, again, if I was making John Yoo the editor of the paper that’s another issue but we’re not. It’s one column, once a month. And I just say to folks. Enjoy it and if you can’t enjoy it get over it.

MMC we’re going to try our callers. Lets see what Tracey from Buffalo, NY has to say.

Listener: hi thanks for taking my call. First of all, I just wanted to comment that if we were just going to discredit everyone in this country for their moral compass being off, our country could possibly collapse, but I appreciate that John Yoo is giving people another way of looking at things. Whether you agree with him or not, I think it helps you build your case one way or another. If he thinks a statement that you don’t agree with. Then let him say his peace and that may build your case even more. But to silence somebody because you don’t agree with what they have to say I think goes against the entire point of putting someone in an op-ed piece. It’s to get us thinking. And I don’t agree with the torture methods but I appreciate being able to look at somebody else’s point of view and helping to solidify what I believe in or help sway me another way to look at things differently.

MMC will what do you say in response.

WB. You know, I think there has been sort of a loosely based campaign to try to normalize torture and to make torture a policy issue. I don’t think its just John Yoo doing this. I think it’s the reason why Dick Cheney is so visible after 8 years in the bunker. Because he realizes that the country is kind of waking up from 8 years, and we’re realizing some of the horrors that took place and how wrong torture is. I think the whole point of Yoo in this debate normalizing torture. I think the column, I think it goes beyond a point of view, I respect broad points of view. I defended Rick Santorum. I said lets argue with him, not silence him. I think Yoo is a totally different category.

MMC we’re almost out of time here. Brian. But Why not have Yoo talk about torture and all the things he wrote about and justified in the Bush Administration, rather than having him write about other issues.

BT. Well his areas of expertise, what he’s known for in terms of at Berkeley where he’s on the faculty etc is he’s an expert on constitutional law. I mean that’s what he’s was a professor there, I think before he was 30 years of age on the faculty of Berkeley. That’s what we want him to talk about not just go rehashing the Bush administration. In fact if that’s all he was going to do we wouldn’t be as keen of having him as a columnist. Tracey, I agree with Tracey.

MMC. any final thoughts from you Will before we have to say goodbye here.

WB. Uh. No, I think we’ve covered it.

(laughter)

MMC you know that has never happened on Radio Times .

WB I have final thoughts but they wouldn’t boil down to 15 seconds .

MMC. I understand. I appreciate both of you joining us today on Radio Times.
Brian Tierney thanks so much.

BT. Your fired Will

(laughter)

WB. That’s what I was waiting for.

MMC. Yeah really. Will Bunch Senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News. His blog is called Attytood and he has a book called Tear Down This Myth.