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Yoo Must Be Joking! Bush Torture Architect Used Philly Inquirer Column To Attack Political Opponents

So we told you earlier today that the Philadelphia Inquirer has signed up Bush torture guru John Yoo as a columnist.

But it gets worse. Greg Sargent points out that in March, Yoo used his new perch to attack civil libertarians who have criticized the Bush administration's expansion of executive power -- an expansion in which Yoo played a key role.

As Greg notes, those same civil libertarians are now pushing for an investigation into the Bush torture program -- something that could well result in Yoo being criminally charged. So you'd think that Yoo's editors would have raised some concerns when he turned in a column self-servingly attacking his attackers.

Guess not.


5 Comments

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Why hasn't anyone tried to disbar this jackal?

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Philadelphia Media Holdings, LLC,
a private investment group is led by advertising executive Brian P. Tierney and Bruce E. Toll. ...Philadelphia Media Holdings was formed in 2006 for the purpose of acquiring the Inquirer, Daily News and related online assets...

Campaign contributions show Tierney supporting W Bush, and Toll supporting Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA). They appear to be Republicans. I wonder if they are doing someone a favor by employing Yoo.

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Oh yeah and worse. Tierney is an over-the-top catholic like Santorum, his buddy - who he hired as an opinion columnist for the Inquirer (at $1750 per column) - after Santorum got overwhelmingly Voted out in PA in 2006.

Many have voiced that Tierney purposely bought the Inquirer to ruin it, as revenge for it's Critical coverage of the Catholic Priest abuse and other scandals in Philly area.

"In the February Philadelphia Magazine, writer Maximilian Potter, a self-described "lapsed Catholic," profiled Brian Tierney, the high-powered local adman and publicist whose firm coached the archdiocese on how to face down the Inquirer when Cipriano's investigations of diocesan finances began to embarrass the cardinal. Tierney -- 75 percent of whose clients are Republicans -- was hired to solve George W. Bush's "Catholic problem": He got the cardinal on stage at the Republican Convention, sprinkled the crowd with dozens of priests and nuns, and rallied over 100,000 new Catholic votes for Bush in Florida. Barnstorming for Bush, Tierney bragged that the pope had named him a Knight of St. Gregory and implied that Bush's policies, including his tax cut, matched those of the church."


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and Greedy too.

"Brian Tierney, CEO, Got Raise As Philly Papers Tanked" - boosted his salary by $850,000

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/24/brian-tierney-ceo-got-rai_n_169367.html

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Initially I was going to ask how the Inquirer was so rolling in dough [perhaps unlike other newspapers] that it could afford to alienate readers by planting Yoo's crap on their editorial page. The comments here have explained it all.

Here's hoping more of Tierney's dough goes down the toilet in this effort: less $$$ to donate to Republican candidates in the future.

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