Ahhh, the lowly brief. When I was a reporter in Mansfield, OH, it was always a struggle to define your artistic style by finding the right cut-off point for the AP wire story, or in limiting your words to fit the news hole while your overcaffeinated news editor yelled at you. Then again, less is often more.

Take these two examples today:

• On John Yoo:
  

  A convicted terrorist can sue a former Bush administration lawyer for drafting the legal theories that led to his alleged torture, ruled a federal judge . . . The order by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White of San Francisco is the first time a government lawyer has been held potentially liable for the abuse of detainees.

• And on the Foxwoods fiasco:

[Councilman Frank] DiCicco was peeved that Rendell recently met with representatives of Foxwoods Casino to discuss concerns that Foxwoods' planned Center City site did not have enough parking. This after Foxwoods testified before Council that it had ample parking, and Mayor Nutter extolled the virtue of a site so close to public transit. . . . "I'm not happy that I was not included in those discussions," DiCicco said.

For those who haven't been paying attention, Brian Tierney's hiring of John "Crushing Kids' Testicles" Yoo continues to embarrass the Inquirer.

First, going after Daily News writer Will Bunch, the Inquirer's Harold Jackson gave us an ultimate "man shouts at clouds" defense of the move.

But that happens when your information comes from those bloggers who never let the facts get in the way when they're trying to whip people into a frenzy to boost Web site hits.

It's a shame that one blogger who disseminated poor information is actually a full-time journalist for a sister publication in The Inquirer building.

To set the record straight, no one tried to hide Yoo's becoming a regular columnist. He had appeared in The Inquirer occasionally since 2005, and his commentaries became a monthly feature about eight months ago.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Those 'bloggers' and their internets tubes! Hey Harold, a blog is a tool, not a viewpoint. Shouting about blogs makes about as much sense as shouting about food processors. And considering that Jackson is going after Bunch, a guy who actually writes for a paper, it raises a question: If the problem is that fancy pants blogging, would Jackson feel better about if another reporter put it in the paper instead? That seems pretty strange.

Then yesterday, the National Lawyers Guild and others protested outside the Inquirer building.

The protest over hiring Yoo as a monthly contributor has to do with his tenuous voice as a legal expert and not his right to free speech, attorney Ryan Hancock of the National Lawyers Guild said yesterday.

"The Inquirer is paying John Yoo and offering him as a legal authority," Hancock said. "I don’t like a lot about what [Inquirer columnist] Michael Smerconish says but he’s just a pundit. When Yoo’s held out as a legal authority, that’s where it crosses the line."

And finally, further emphasizing the paper's status as a national laughingstock, the Colbert Report took a turn last night:

As I have said before, this is really just embarrassing the paper. There are a lot of good journalists there who are doing great work, and they don't deserve to have their work impugned by someone as morally depraved and totally unqualified as John Yoo.

The National Lawyers Guild will be participating in a demonstration at the Inquirer against John "The President Can Crush a Child's Testicles if he Feels Like it" Yoo. This will go down at 5pm today.

Today, the Philadelphia Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild will participate in a demonstration against the Philadelphia Inquirer’s recent decision to hire John Yoo as a monthly columnist. The demonstration's purpose is not to limit John Yoo's First Amendment right to speech, but to voice our disapproval with the Inquirer’s decision to present Yoo as a legitimate legal authority, despite his actions to the contrary.

Yes, I want someone to save the Daily News and the Inquirer, and I think our city would be much worse off if they were gone. But, for the love of God, Brian Tierney's far-far-far-right wing, political hack sensibilities, and what they are doing to the Inquirer Op-Ed pages, make the paper bizarrely out of touch with the city and region.

We get treated to Rick Santorum twice a month. And then we get Kevin Ferris, who today published an embarrassing regurgitation of a talk by John Bolton, who was too far right even for George Bush. "Kevin Ferris," by which I mean John Bolton, tells us just how dangerous Obama's foreign policy is. It is bereft of even a hint of critical thought or analysis. Good work, Kev-o! The stenography was splendid!

Only in this grouping can Michael Smerconish, a Ronald Reagan political appointee to HUD, be considered some sort of sane voice.

And today, Tierney and Co. only made clearer how far they are willing to pander for the far, far, far, right-wing, when they ran a piece of stupidity and racial-clucking by soon to be ex-lawyer John Yoo.

I don't normally like to curse on the front page of the blog. The kids and all that. But... John Fucking Yoo? Seriously? John Fucking Yoo?

John Yoo is not just a right-wing shill. He is the right-wing shill who authored bizarrely disingenuous memos authorizing Bush and Co to start torturing people. He did so by simply ignoring the most important case on point, something you learn not to do within the first month of law school, and he will, with a little luck, be disbarred. Why in the world would John Yoo be given a space in the damn paper? I only hope that when Yoo is disbarred, which hopefully will happen some time after the DOJ internal investigation is released, the Inquirer editors will provide us with an explanation as to why this supreme jackass, and godfather of torture, is given so prominent a place in our newspaper of record.

Luckily, Yoo is apparently only a member of the Pennsylvania Bar. So it is possible that a small piece of justice for all those who were tortured thanks in part to John Yoo will actually occur in Harrisburg, of all places. I guess on the bright side of things, if the Harrisburg Bureau of the paper is not totally killed, the Inquirer can get a great and convenient story, only made bigger by the fact that they promote Mr. Torture's work.

So, Brian Tierney, a big shout out to you, my friend. It is amazing how hard you make it to support your papers, and the work of the actual newsroom. Kudos.