A young lawyer in the Bush Justice Department during the early months of the war on terror, John Yoo has ever since been hounded by critics who accuse him of having written legal opinions that encouraged the administration to exercise extensive — and, the critics contend — unconstitutional — executive powers. Now Yoo has published a masterful new historical study, Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush. When it comes to executive war-making powers, Yoo argues, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt make Bush look like a piker.

This week on Uncommon Knowledge, the most controversial law professor in America, John Yoo.

The president’s powers were meant to fluctuate – expand during emergencies and retract during peacetime.

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