Lawyers, Americas Impaired Intellectuals

"It has long been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression,... that the germ of dissolution of our Federal Government is in the constitution of the Federal Judiciary — an irresponsible body, working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction until all shall be usurped from the States and the government be consolidated into one. To this I am opposed." Thomas Jefferson 1821

Since judges are drawn from the ranks of lawyers, about whom former Chief Justice Warren Burger, U.S. Supreme Court from 1969 to 1986, has stated: "75 to 90 percent of American trial lawyers are incompetent, dishonest, or both," the incompetence and dishonesty levels of judges is certain to be at least this high.

In any given year, 10 practicing “insured” lawyers out of every 100 see a malpractice claim. And there are others that aren’t insured at all. With most people unable to find a qualified attorney who will sue a brother in arms, or have been forced into bankruptcy by their lawyer’s incompetence level, attorneys have become a Bastian of greed and corruption and lawbreakers who steal then slither away in the darkness.

And yet incompetence is generally rewarded in Washington .

Take for example the competency level of BUSH justice department lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee, each authorized the CIA to use torture methods of water-boarding and other extreme measures on captured suspects in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, the word here is suspects of which most were innocent!

Bush administration officials at the time were so worried about the prospect that CIA officers might be criminally prosecuted for torture that one senior official - Attorney General John Ashcroft - even suggested that President Bush issue "advance pardons" for those engaging in water-boarding, a proposal that he was quickly told was not possible. John Ashcroft was the top lawyer in the US and he failed to understand the Constitutions limitations.

The views of former Justice lawyer John Yoo were deemed to be so extreme and out of step with legal precedents that they prompted the Justice Department's internal watchdog office to conclude last year that he committed "intentional professional misconduct" Yoo’s, position was strongly backed by David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's legal counsel. What happened to them?

David S. Addington, who was a forceful voice in internal legal debates, as of March 2009 is said to still be looking for work.

As for Bybee and Yoo they were rewarded, Yoo, is now a Berkeley law professor, and his boss at the time, Jay Bybee, is now a federal judge, approved by congress!

Yoo was so out of step with his legal training that he either believed “Bush Could Order Civilians to Be 'Massacred' as he has stated, or so corrupt that his teaching at Berkley is a major concern for the future of this profession.

And as for Bybee, as a federal judge he wields a lot of power that directed against the constitution could endanger our remaining rights. And his appointment to the Supreme Court could mark the end of what remains of this tattered democracy.