To the American People: I conceived the idea of removing the President four weeks ago. Not a soul knew of my purpose. I conceived the idea myself and kept it to myself. I read the newspapers carefully for and against the Administration, and gradually the conviction settled on me that the President's removal was a political necessity, because he proved a traitor to the men that made him, and thereby imperilled the life of the Republic...This is not murder. It is a political necessity...From Georgetown University's Charles Guiteau Collection. [more inside]
In June, about 100 people gathered at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, to hear a lecture by John Yoo on "fighting the new terrorism." Mr. Yoo recommended an unusual idea: assassinating more suspected terrorists.posted by kliuless at 5:10 PM on September 12, 2005
A law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, he said his proposal would require "a change in the way we think about the executive order banning assassination, which has been with us since the 1970s." Such a change is needed, he said, because it is wartime: "A nation at war may use force against members of the enemy at any time, regardless of their proximity to hostilities or their activity at the time of attack."
Mr. Yoo, 38 years old, is no ordinary ivory-tower theorist. During a two-year stint at the Justice Department from 2001 through 2003, he wrote some of the most controversial internal legal opinions justifying the Bush administration's aggressive approach to detaining and interrogating suspected terrorists.
Some of those memos have become public, but not all of them. Asked after his AEI talk whether there is a classified Justice Department opinion justifying assassinations, Mr. Yoo hinted that he'd written one himself. "You would think they -- the administration -- would have had an opinion about it, given all the other opinions, wouldn't you?" he said, adding, "And you know who would have done the work."
A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment...
Garfield's original wound was 3.5 inches long, and ended with the bullet lodged in a harmless part of the abdomen. The wound was probed by the fingers of numerous physicians during the rest of Garfield's life so that, by the time of his death, the wound track was 20 inches long and oozing pus.posted by moonbiter at 2:18 AM on September 13, 2005
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Despite his insane behavior during his trial and his probably-correct claim that the doctors caused Garfield's death, Guiteau was found guilty on January 23, 1882, and was hanged on June 30, 1882.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:31 PM on September 12, 2005