John Yoo and the Whiskey Rebellion

I was interested to see John Yoo citing my book The Whiskey Rebellion in his recent Crisis and Command. Author of the notorious Bush-administration “torture memo,” and now a law professor at Berkeley, Yoo is using his book to defend Bush’s ruthless efforts to expand executive-branch power. Seeking precedent in earlier expansions, under conditions of national threat that Yoo takes to be similar to those posed by Islamic terrorism, he looks specifically to Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, FDR, and, of course, Washington.

Which brings him to The Whiskey Rebellion.