While I, too, rejoiced in the grilling of Mssr's Yoo and Addington, I was somewhat perplexed by the mention of the exchange between Yoo and Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison. Besides being unimaginably combative, Ellison was also utterly unproductive in eliciting any significant testimony from Yoo.

While Congressmen frequently employ the tactic of interrupting witnesses so as to protect the record from any caveats and codicils that might help witnesses equivocate, Ellison (ab)used the tactic to utterly no effect. Yoo wasn't even able to articulate a response! More troublingly, Yoo's appearance was voluntary, and, unlike Addington, he was generally receptive to questioning until Conyers and Ellison began to badger him to an unparalleled extent. (For the record, I'm a C-SPAN junkie and I've never seen a more hostile approach to a previously unhostile witness in Congressional hearings).

Bazelon mentions that Yoo was evasive on the word "implement." Actually, if you read the transcript (or watch the hearing, as I did), it was Ellison who began the rather puerile joust of questioning the word; before Yoo could even respond to the question in which Ellison had used the word "implement," Ellison was combatively (and derisively) asking if Yoo knew what the word "implement" meant. (Sorry Keith, for all Yoo's evil genius, he's still...a genius, and unlike you, graduated with honors from an elite law school). Each time Yoo tried to respond, Ellison retorted with mocking quips. Then, in his blustering stupidity, Ellison chastises Yoo for playing, and I quote, "semantical games!"

Watching the whole charade (for indeed, Addington was unsurprisingly successful in insidiously evading the questions, making the event nothing less than a pantomime), one could easily recognize which of the assembled Congressmen had received serious legal educations. Of note, Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) exercised a laudable degree of legal keenness. His questioning of Yoo's apparent emphasis on a subjective standard for determining torture (rather than a bright-line rule) was incisive and illuminating. Nadler seemed flustered by Addington's sly evasiveness, but overall his questions were on-point and intelligent. Even Conyers, for all his bombast, was generally effective. Only Ellison displayed a complete incapacity for subtle legal thinking.

I agree. Very astute observations.