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Very classy of them to rally to the aid of Obama's embattled DOJ. Srsly.
Here is the full statement and signatories as of early Monday:
The past several days have seen a shameful series of attacks on attorneys in the Department of Justice who, in previous legal practice, either represented Guantanamo detainees or advocated for changes to detention policy. As attorneys, former officials and policy specialists who have worked on detention issues, we consider these attacks both unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications.
The American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams’s representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston massacre. People come to serve in the Justice Department with a diverse array of prior private clients; that is one of the department’s strengths. The War on Terror raised any number of novel legal questions, which collectively created a significant role in judicial, executive and legislative forums alike for honorable advocacy on behalf of detainees. In several key cases, detainee advocates prevailed before the Supreme Court. To suggest that the Justice Department should not employ talented lawyers who have advocated on behalf of detainees maligns the patriotism of people who have taken honorable positions on contested questions and demands a uniformity of background and view in government service from which no administration would benefit.
Such attacks also undermine the Justice system more broadly. In terrorism detentions and trials alike, defense lawyers are playing, and will continue to play, a key role. Whether one believes in trial by military commission or in federal court, detainees will have access to counsel. Guantanamo detainees likewise have access to lawyers for purposes of habeas review, and the reach of that habeas corpus could eventually extend beyond this population. Good defense counsel is thus key to ensuring that military commissions, federal juries, and federal judges have access to the best arguments and most rigorous factual presentations before making crucial decisions that affect both national security and paramount liberty interests. To delegitimize the role detainee counsel play is to demand adjudications and policymaking stripped of a full record. Whatever systems America develops to handle difficult detention questions will rely, at least some of the time, on an aggressive defense bar; those who take up that function do a service to the system.
Benjamin Wittes
Robert Chesney
Matthew Waxman
David Rivkin
Lee Casey
Philip Bobbitt
Peter Keisler
Bradford Berenson
Kenneth Anderson
John Bellinger III
Philip Zelikow
Kenneth W. Starr
Larry Thompson
Charles "Cully" D. Stimson
Chuck Rosenberg
Harvey Rishikoff
Orin Kerr
Daniel Dell’Orto
Last edited by Winehole23; 03-08-2010 at 03:54 PM.
Very classy of them to rally to the aid of Obama's embattled DOJ. Srsly.
I was hoping to never see this name ever again.Kenneth W. Starr
Isn't he the new Baylor President or something?
In February 2010, Starr was named 14th president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, to assume the role in June 2010. Starr, a member of the University Church of Christ in Malibu, California, announced that on his transition to Baylor he will affiliate with a Baptist congregation in Waco
In Re: the article itself, I thought one of the more interesting parts was the reference to the upheaval in the Bush administration itself between the Cheney forces and the more moderate forces regarding where the detainees would be tried, etc. I think it goes to the point that in the last couple of years of the administration, Cheney was less influential in the internal decisions than he had been previously.
It appears that now, Liz Cheney et.al., are picking up where her father's followers left off in the prior administration, and are still trying to settle old arguments (e.g., the supreme court case that the Bush administration lost which was argued by some of the guys they are going after today). Of course, while the prior administration was in office the arguments were private...now that the administration is of the opposite party those who disagree with the Cheney position are virtually (or literally) accused of being insufficiently patriotic and leading the country into unsafe waters.
The latter seems pretty par for the course for politicians, but it does seem interesting that Cheney father and daughter have been so vocal in opposition to this administration, and that they lost the same arguments in the last administration.
Well, good for Baylor I guess. May Waco be philanderer-free...................
It's a two way street. The current administration points the finger at the previous administration, the previous administration will point the finger right back. The circle of partisan bickering remains unbroken.
"current administration points the finger at the previous administration"
correctly
"previous administration will point the finger right back."
... was WRONG on every major initiative and failed horribly at governance, as intended. Now it CYA and blame all Repug ups on MN.
Could be. The media megaphone is still turned on, I think. Usage can be telling.
Ol' fashioned score settling. Isn't there supposed to be a Cheney book for all that?
New brand propaganda, year two. By now it's thematic, and it bears a distinct resemblance to the old propaganda.
Sore losers? One can hope...
Cue someone from the red team clan to reverse these responses and the cycle continues....................
When the state can identify a citizen as an enemy of the state and breeze straight past the formalities of judicial proceedings to the gallows....
Anyways, it's good to see that someone would point out that representation does not equate to solidarity, morons be damned.
Regardless of whether or not Cheney father and daughter WIN the arguments this time around, it is at indicative that their positions have remained unchanged, and they seem to be still trying to get someone to agree with them.
I read the book The One Percent Doctrine and it purports to explain Cheney (pere)'s position that 'as long as there is a 1% chance that there could be another attack' then anything and everything that could be done should be done to limit the chance. The emphasis was on minimizing the chances of another attack, regardless of the impact on civil liberties or any of the other 'niceties' of our cons ution.
I suspect that remains his priority, even if it is not everyone else's.
Apparently this expansion of executive power is so overwhelmingly popular that not even people who hate Barack Obama would see him denied this power, or even scold his use of it.
With Bush it was novelty; now it is the precedent, and Obama hallows it as custom by his mere usage.
+1. Succinctly put.
Rather curious for a crew that fancies him as the new Stalin, no?
"Fascism" lurks in the Health Care Reform Act of 2010, not in the state arbitrarily executing citizens.
What does it mean when high public officials tell you the protection they're selling you is worth more than the cons ution they swore to uphold?
Or when they sell severity of their measures vis a vis personal liberty as a tough-minded virtue, and not as the dangerous innovation it is?
King George has won?
It means they think you are an imbecile, that's what it means. It means that they would trample all over the cons ution they vowed to uphold because they figure you don't know enough or care enough to remember what it says. It means they believe that they are being 'benevolent' dictators, when in fact there is lttle 'benevolent' about it.
King Richard?
Dress it in the flag and call it "freedom." That's all it takes. Freedom isn't free. Your freedom comes from the government, never mind that old notion of a free people consenting to create a government of laws.
Richard today, I suppose. I must admit that I don't pay much attention to the royals.
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