Fresh off of an evisceration by military interrogator Matthew Alexander in one of the lesser tentacles of the Kaplan Daily, former Bush speechwriter and torture advocate Marc Thiessen tries his hand at defending the neo-McCarthyism of his friends at Keep America Safe, comparing the so-called Gitmo Nine to mob lawyers:
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.This is a laughable comparison. Even the folks at Keep America Safe aren't alleging the kind of direct social, financial, and personal ties between al-Qaeda and the detainee lawyers that mob and cartel lawyers have with their clients. In some case, the attorneys may not have even met with their clients directly -- in the Hamdan case for example, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift spoke directly to Salim Hamdan, but current Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal apparently never did, even though he helped argue the case before the Supreme Court. For this to be remotely comparable, Thiessen would have to be arguing that Lt. Cmdr. Swift was loyal to al-Qaeda, not just Katyal, which would again, implicate every single military defense counsel as a traitor.
Moreover, Thiessen's argument undermines the doublespeak from Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol that they're not questioning anyone's loyalty. The reason the Justice Department doesn't hire mob or cartel lawyers is because they are potentially implicated in the illegal activity of those organizations -- an absurd charge when leveled at the lawyers for Guantanamo detainees, so absurd Keep America Safe isn't even making it. Moreover, KAS claims to be outraged at the "pro-bono" representation of detainees, but mob lawyers act at least partially out of financial compensation -- not to mention loyalty, fear, potential coercion -- which aren't applicable here.
The identity of the smeared DoJ lawyers is also a moot point. The names of the attorneys have been revealed. In one case, Republicans voted nearly unanimously to confirm Tony West, to head the DoJ's Civil Division. West's defense of John Walker Lindh was among the most high-profile moves of his career. None of the Republican senators now outraged had any complaints during his confirmation hearing.
Thiessen:
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.
Again, this is a bizarre complaint. The result of all these "terrorist sympathizers" are national security policies that look almost identical to those of Thiessen's boss post-2006. The implications of Thiessen's argument here have already been proven false.
Moving on, we get to the real source of Thiessen's sputtering rage later in the column:
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.
There is no comparison between the attorneys in the Bush administration who sought to circumvent the law and the attorneys who tried to uphold it by guaranteeing due process for Guantanamo detainees. The latter have the force of one Supreme Court ruling after another to bolster their conclusions.
Above, Thiessen gets to what all of this is really about: revenge for what Thiessen feels is the unfair treatment of his colleagues in the public. Unlike Ted Olson, who defended both his former colleagues in the Bush administration and the smeared Justice Department lawyers by making the argument that on principle, what he sees as "good faith" legal advice from attorneys should not be criticized, Thiessen is uninterested in principle. He's interested in payback. Where conservative lawyers like Olson, Ken Starr, Jim Bellinger III, even David Rifkin and Lee Casey see a larger issue at stake in blacklisting lawyers who represent potentially unsavory clients, Thiessen only sees team colors and squad numbers.
Thiessen's argument is tribalism, the petty patriotism of the aggrieved, and it explains everything about the philosophy of the Cheney faction: There are no laws, no boundaries, no institutions of society which are sacred when it comes to their declared enemies. This is why people like Thiessen argue that people suspected of being terrorists are owed no rights, that the torture of Muslims is justified based on their religion. This is what distances them from their conservative colleagues and the attorneys who chose to support the American system of justice by representing Guantanamo Bay detainees. No matter how much the latter may disagree on specifics, they understand that there is a greater value to American institutions that can't be sacrificed just to crush one's enemies.
In the Cheneyites' complete disregard for due process, they reveal they don't actually care about the collateral damage of their rampages, human or otherwise, which is why they aren't fit to govern.
-- A. Serwer
