i haven't read all the uproar about lawyers who worked for the terrorists and now are in the obama justice dept. I would like to note that lawyers defending lawyers is not new. It is one of the only times when partisan politics can be put to the side. Is it acceptable that the obama group will not give the number of ex terrorist lawyers? I donl't, personally have a problem with barry hiring all the ex lawyers. But, let's say, these lawyers come from the same couple firms or are hired in large numbers, are we not allowed to question what the connecting factors are?
I thought so too at first, but maybe it isn't. Maybe the comparisons are more agonistic than accurate.
People are used to a strong President, and the power of the office has become an idol in and of itself as the adversary par excellence of *radical evil*.
The practical indignities to US citizenship and liberty contemplated in the policy, its extreme novelty, the regal measure of discretion it affords the President?
Almost nobody cares. Even the people you'd think were an intuitive fit for it
The Republic is dead. Conservatism is a lifestyle, for those fixated on living vicariously through the US military.
(urp)
beg pardon.
I understood your reference to George III. Since we were talking about Cheney, my reference was to Richard III. Sorry.
It is disappointing there were no Democrats "rallying" for the Bush DOJ when they were zealously defending our country against terrorists for the past 8 years.
I guess they have no class. Srsly.
I think that somewhere in the actual full article it references that the DOJ identified 7 such lawyers recently, including one who won the argument before the Supreme Court that went against the Bush administration. I don't think it mentioned whether or not they came from the same law firm. I would be awfully surprised if more than one came from the same place.
In any event, SnC, The Cheneys' concern was not what firm they came from, but that they had represented defendents in the terrorism trials during the Bush administration , (hence, the other lawyers' references to John Adams defending the Boston masacre soldiers).
Just the sort of electorate that might nominate a Stalin, IMO.
(BTW: That's not a knock the US military, just on the T-shirt Owners Group; see, HOG.)
Democrats like Ken Starr?
Boo hoo. You expected public manifestations in favor of indefinite detention and harsh interrogation?
Srsly?
I didn't see what liz cheney said. I did watch kristol make a point to obama not disclosing the number in the doj who were previously defending gitmo detainees. When hearing rush bring this up, adams was the first thing that came to mind. although this was to calm the citizens from lynching the soldiers, imo. Also adams was the first true american politician (i'm more of a sam adams kind of guy). I am not sure but I thought:
1. Adams didn't get paid for defending the soldiers; and
2. was asked by the brittish govenor, I can't remember his name.
My comment was to point out that if there were a litmus test being administered, how else to find out than to question. I personally think it smart to get them in there to help with the loop holes that the very lawyers profited from. But also think it no reason to not disclose how many were involved in it prior.
John Adams, in his old age, called his defense of British soldiers in 1770 "one of the most gallant, generous, manly, and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country."
Adams got most of them off. A couple of Redcoats got their thumbs branded.
His law business fell off by half, and did not recover with much swiftness.
That's one way of putting it. At least you didn't proffer the 'defending our freedoms by ting on the Cons ution' hobby horse.
Where's Toby Keith when we need him?
The three lawyers (two conservative and one moderate to left-leaning) have been discussing this over at Powerline for the past couple of days. I didn't see the commercial but, in following the discussion here and there, I think this latest post -- commenting on the letter that is the topic of this thread -- kind of sums up their position with which I can't disagree.
Getting it partly right on the DOJ 7
I think that's a reasonable position.
This is so obvious that it almost doesn't merit discussion. We have an adversarial justice system. Competent representation doesn't just help the defendants; it helps us all by keeping government honest.
BTW, Phillip Bobbit a Republican?
So Osama's driver was at war with the US, or did he take the wrong job?
Not to mention that once upon a time Osama was a friend of these United States as he hated the commies too.
If guilt by association makes one beyond the pale, why'd W (that doesn't stand for Wilson) let some of bin Laden's family skip town shortly after the 9/11 attacks?
I know, we're neocons and we're always right.
When this "War on Terror" justifies assassinations of American citizens by the executive branch, then by all means let's provide counsel to those deemed enemies of the state.
Giving the defense bar more any scrutiny than the prosecution here would seem to be invidious.
All officers of the courts can potentially be tainted by their contact with presumptive "terrorists", not just the lawyers who defend them. If Keep America Safe were vetting all the prosecutors too, that'd be one thing. But instead it discloses an evident and unashamed bias against defense.
The wise heads at Powerline apparently superimpose "national security" and transparency as a fig leaves for McCarthyite agitation. Big whoop. What did you think they were going to say?
Who cares about the government when there's a terrorist behind every tree?
Let's put a boot in dar ass, it's duh murican way.
Thanks for the reminder. Some people here seem to think we shouldn't.
You seem to think this is not worth mentioning as being too obvious, but I don't think it is. Among non-lawyers at least.
The 'al-Qaeda seven' and selective McCarthyism
By Marc A. Thiessen
Monday, March 8, 2010; 11:22 AM
Would most Americans want to know if the Justice Department had hired a bunch of mob lawyers and put them in charge of mob cases? Or a group of drug cartel lawyers and put them in charge of drug cases? Would they want their elected representatives to find out who these lawyers were, which mob bosses and drug lords they had worked for, and what roles they were now playing at the Justice Department? Of course they would -- and rightly so.
Yet Attorney General Eric Holder hired former al-Qaeda lawyers to serve in the Justice Department and resisted providing Congress this basic information. In November, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Holder a letter requesting that he identify officials who represented terrorists or worked for organizations advocating on their behalf, the cases and projects they worked on before coming to the Justice Department, the cases and projects they've worked on since joining the administration, and a list of officials who have recused themselves because of prior work on behalf of terrorist detainees.
Holder stonewalled for nearly three months. Finally, two weeks ago, he admitted that nine political appointees in the Justice Department had represented or advocated for terrorist detainees, but he failed to identify seven whose names were not publicly known or to directly answer other questions the senators posed. So Keep America Safe, a group headed by Liz Cheney, posted a Web ad demanding that Holder identify the "al-Qaeda seven," and a subsequent Fox News investigation unearthed the names. Only under this public pressure did the Justice Department confirm their iden ies -- but Holder still refuses to disclose their roles in detention policy.
Americans have a right to this information. One lawyer in the National Security Division of Holder's Justice Department, Jennifer Daskal, has written that any terrorist not charged with a crime "should be released from Guantanamo's system of indefinite detention" even though "at least some of these men may ... join the battlefield to fight U.S. soldiers and our allies another day." Should a lawyer who advocates setting terrorists free, knowing they may go on to kill Americans, have any role in setting U.S. detention policy? My hunch is that most Americans would say no.
Do other lawyers in question hold similarly radical and dangerous views? Without the information Holder is withholding, we cannot know if such lawyers are affecting detainee policy.
Yet for raising questions, Cheney and the Republican senators have been vilified. Former Clinton Justice Department official Walter Dellinger decried the "shameful" personal attacks on "these fine lawyers," while numerous commentators leveled charges of "McCarthyism."
Where was the moral outrage when fine lawyers like John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Jim Haynes, Steve Bradbury and others came under vicious personal attack? Their critics did not demand simple transparency; they demanded heads. They called these individuals "war criminals" and sought to have them fired, disbarred, impeached and even jailed. Where were the defenders of the "al-Qaeda seven" when a Spanish judge tried to indict the "Bush six"? Philippe Sands, author of the "Torture Team," crowed: "This is the end of these people's professional reputations!" I don't recall anyone accusing him of "shameful" personal attacks.
The standard today seems to be that you can say or do anything when it comes to the Bush lawyers who defended America against the terrorists. But if you publish an Internet ad or ask legitimate questions about Obama administration lawyers who defended America's terrorist enemies, you are engaged in a McCarthyite witch hunt.
Some defenders say al-Qaeda lawyers are simply following a great American tradition, in which everyone gets a lawyer and their day in court. Not so, says Andy McCarthy, the former assistant U.S. attorney who put Omar Abdel Rahman, the "blind sheik," behind bars for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. "We need to be clear about what the American tradition is," McCarthy told me. "The Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused -- that means somebody who has been indicted or otherwise charged with a crime -- a right to counsel. But that right only exists if you are accused, which means you are someone who the government has brought into the civilian criminal justice system." The habeas lawyers were not doing their cons utional duty to defend unpopular criminal defendants. They were using the federal courts as a tool to undermine our military's ability to keep dangerous enemy combatants off the battlefield in a time of war.
If lawyers who once sought to free captured terrorists are now setting U.S. policy when it comes to the release of Guantanamo detainees, moving terrorists to the United States, trying senior al-Qaeda leaders in civilian courts, and whether to give captured terrorists Miranda rights, then, as Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) put it, the public has "a right to know who advises the attorney general and the president on these critical matters." Only when this information is public can members of Congress judge whether these individuals have properly recused themselves or whether they should be involved in detainee matters at all. The charge of McCarthyism is intended to intimidate those raising legitimate questions into silence. But asking such questions is not McCarthyism. It's oversight.
You don't believe in the American justice system.
That's fine for you.
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