John Yoo hitting back at critics

BERKELEY, Calif., July 27 (UPI) -- Legal scholar John Yoo, whose U.S. Justice Department opinions allowed the Bush administration to use harsh interrogations, is mad at his critics, friends say.

Friends and lawyers who have followed his career told Monday's Washington Post that Yoo, once considered mild-mannered and friendly, has become much more assertive and contentious as criticisms of his Justice Department opinions -- which gave legal blessing to bold actions by President George W. Bush in fighting terrorists -- have come under harsh assessments as overreaching.

Even as some Bush administration figures who played key roles in the expansion of presidential counterterrorism powers in such areas as prisoner interrogations and electronic surveillance have retreated into silence, Yoo has not, making vocal justifications of his opinions in public appearances while continuing to teach at the University of California-Berkeley, the newspaper said.

Jesse Choper, a Berkeley colleague of Yoo's, told the Post, "This is not a person who goes around raging or screaming at people -- quite the opposite."

Yoo, 42, this month penned an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal in which he defended his actions and labeled the assertions of his critics as "absurd" and "foolhardy" responses to "the media-stoked politics of recrimination."