How Low Will the Cheneys Go?

I don't have the words to express my disgust with this attack on Department of Justice lawyers from the Liz Cheney-led group that goes by the name of Keep America Safe, more aptly named Keep America Scared. Shameful, despicable, and contemptible aren't strong enough. Adam Serwer at The American Prospect appropriately called it "The New McCarthyism." For those who may not have seen it, here's the video:





So now lawyers who defend people accused of being terrorists are subjected to questions like "Whose values do they share?" as a picture of Osama bin Laden flashes across the screen? How low will the Cheneys and their like-minded purveyors of fear and hate go? Unfortunately, that question has yet to be answered. Those depths have yet to be plumbed.

I wonder if Keep America Scared also questions the loyalties of our military?

"Justice Department lawyers aren't the only ones who have represented accused terrorists. American military personnel have as well, often successfully. Major Eric Montalvo (retired), who acted as a defense counsel in the Guantanamo Bay military commissions, said that the accusation that lawyers who fought the Bush administration's policies were "terrorist sympathizers" was absurd. "That's not sympathy for a terrorist -- that's sympathy for the rule of law, the American way of doing business."

Remember the rule of law? That antiquated pre-9/11 notion we once had that people were innocent until proven guilty? That merely being a suspect wasn't reason enough for indefinite detention? That the accused had the right to due process and trial by jury, even if the accused happened to have a Muslim-sounding name?  

"Lt. Col. David Frakt, who has represented detainees both in military and civilian courts, said that the lawyers who secured due process rights for detainees were ultimately vindicated. "There is an assumption there that has proven to be a fallacy, which is that everyone at Guantanamo was a terrorist," Frakt says, pointing to the fact that the government has lost three-quarters of the habeas petitions filed by detainees at Guantanamo. "What we have seen over and over and over is that the vast majority of detainees at Guantanamo are innocent.

...Col. Morris Davis (retired) served as the former chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo Bay military commissions and has since argued that they should be abandoned. But initially, when the commissions were formed, he volunteered to be chief defense counsel. "I thought for the good of our system, they needed zealous representation," says Davis."

Col. Davis shares the view of another young lawyer from another time in our history who was asked to defend eight accused enemy soldiers.

"[He] understood that taking the case would not only subject him to criticism, but might jeopardize his legal practice or even risk the safety of himself and his family. But [he] believed deeply that every person deserved a defense, and he took on the case without hesitation."

Years later he reflected on his defense of those enemy soldiers as "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."

That young lawyer's name was John Adams.