Ted Olson, a former solicitor general under George W. Bush who lost his wife in the September 11 attacks, has become the latest conservative luminary to come out against Liz Cheney's McCarthyite ad, which accuses Justice Department lawyers who did work on behalf of suspected terror detainees of disloyalty.

Olson, though, seems to think that there's an equivalence between say, criticizing John Yoo and Jay Bybee's rubber-stamping of torture and ensuring detainees have due process (via Ben Smith):

Liz Cheney and her organization, Keep America Safe, seem to be playing defense because of the backlash from their latest ad, which accuses Justice Department lawyers who represented accused terror detainees terrorist sympathizers.

Yesterday, Keep America Safe Spokesman Aaron Harison, in an interview with Main Justice, struggled to argue that, in fact, they weren't suggesting that at all:

House Republicans failed in an attempt to insert into the Intelligence Authorization Act an amendment that would have seriously micromanaged the executive branch, requiring the director of National Intelligence's "personal and prior approval before mirandizing a terrorist suspect." The motion to recommit failed by a vote of 186-217.

The same day that congressional leaders met in an effort to find bipartisan accord and Obama urged Congress to get beyond "petty politics," petty politics reigned. Republicans, and a few Democrats, successfully blocked the appointment of Craig Becker, a union lawyer, to the National Labor Relations Board.

Via David Schorr, former Bill Clinton- and George W. Bush-era counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke accuses the GOP of positioning themselves in order to take advantage of a terrorist attack. Noting that the Obama administration's approach to handling the failed underwear bomber was consistent with that of prior administrations, Clarke writes:

At this point, Charles Krauthammer is like Andy McCarthy, if McCarthy could turn a phrase. Here Krauthammer argues the "system worked" -- for Umar Abdulmutallab:

What he lost in flying privileges he gained in Miranda rights. He was singing quite freely when seized after trying to bring down Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit. But the Obama administration decided to give him a lawyer and the right to remain silent. We are now forced to purchase information from this attempted terrorist in the coin of leniency. Absurdly, Abdulmutallab is now in control.

[...]

A number of Republicans have pointed to this Rasmussen poll showing a majority of Americans would want the alleged underwear bomber Umar Abdulmutallab waterboarded as proof that the GOP is "winning" the national security debate. Certainly American acceptance of torture has increased over time, but I suspect that has more to do with, now that Bush is out of office, being able to embrace torture openly -- rather than having to sound ambivalent or dissemble about whether waterboarding is torture.