An old charge has been brought back from the grave and used against members of Keep America Safe, the political action committee dedicated to ensuring America’s benevolent hegemony abroad, as well as her safety at home. The PAC was started by William Kristol, son of the late (great) Irving Kristol; Elizabeth Cheney (daughter of Dick Cheney); and Debra Burlingame, “sister of Charles F. ‘Chic’ Burlingame, III, pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.” It would behoove us to keep in mind the effort that critics of KAS take in singling out only Kristol and Cheney in their attacks. Let’s be clear however, that members of both the Right and Left are calling all three Founders “McCarthy-ites” when they levy these charges of “fear-mongering” and borderline Neo-Nazism.
What’s funny, is that being called a McCarthyite is extraordinarily mild compared to the perpetual reduction ad Hitlerum the left consistently employs against National Security Conservatives. While Washington Post editorial columnist Jonathan Capehart dares not tread past the label “fear-mongering” in his quaint and insipid blog post about the matter of “The Al-Qaeda 7,” one of the members of his amen corner dares tread where… well, most liberals dare to tread:
The Rabid Reichwingers like Lizzy Borden Cheney, and Dick Adolf Cheney, are liken to Vampires. Once they get a taste of BLOOD, they want more.
They know by attacking these Lawyers, that their Reichwing Minions will pressure any Lawyer who would dare defend the Terrorist.
They assume everyone’s as Ignorant as their Minions, and won’t remeber all the court cases doing the Bush Error, concerning Terrorist.
In reality the real Terrorist America should be concern with are people like Lizzy B. Cheney and the ever increasing “RABID REICH”.
(Spelling mistakes in the original, due in part to modern liberal education I assume)
Andrew Sullivan also falls into the old reduction ad Hitlerum a number of times, one instance being his 2007 rant against President Bush’s enhanced interrogations. How depressing, that an erudite student of Dr. Harvey Mansfield would resort to such empty hyperbole. But I digress.
So liberals like to associate Republicans with a political party responsible for the extermination of twelve million plus fellow human beings; all of a sudden being called a McCarthyite doesn’t sting as bad. One of these days, it is my hope that being called a Neo-Nazi, a Klansmen, a McCarthyist, et cetera will ring hollow, like the heads from whence they were spoken. I guess this makes me an idealist.
The fury is over a recent KAS add which addresses the hiring of nine attorneys in the Department of Justice, who also happened to have represented suspected terrorists in the past. This matter is a bit unnerving for some as I am sure the ACLU would not be so inclined as to hire, say, Robert Bork; or how about the Southern Poverty law Center giving jobs to a handful of lawyers who represented Aryan Nations, the Klan, or real Neo-Nazis. Does that mean that those people should not be hired? Of course not, and by now anyone who has been keeping up with the news has heard all of the historical anecdotes where good Americans represented clients who went against America’s principles in the name of justice in the rule of law. The most famous example being reiterated is that of John Adams’ representation of the English soldiers who opened fire on a crowd of Colonialists in Boston, Massachusetts in 1770.
The main point, however, is not that the Department of Justice hired people who used to represent suspected terrorists. Perhaps this entire issue would have been avoided if Eric Holder, the Attorney general, had just given the names to the Senate back in November 2009 when they requested further information on the matter, as Marc Thiessen points out in the Washington Post:
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 identities — but Holder still refuses to disclose their roles in detention policy.
Andrew McCarthy also addresses the issue:
Only our terrorist enemies get the red carpet treatment. “Enemies” in this context is not hyperbole. We are at war under a congressional authorization. Nearly 200,000 young Americans are in harm’s way. But enemy operatives are returning to their jihad against our troops and our citizens thanks to the help of American law firms. Only lawyers demand immunity from the ordinary duties of citizenship in a nation at war. And they further demand to be above criticism for donating their skills to al Qaeda operatives (though American prisoners must represent themselves in habeas corpus actions). The profession would reinterpret “patriotism” in total relativism: some risk their lives to fight the enemy for us, while others litigate so the enemy may be freed to return to the fight. Americans are not buying – that’s why Liz Cheney’s common sense resonates.
As for Jonathan Capehart and the sycophantic left, I look forward to their confrontations with their peers about the way they treated Bush Administration lawyers who meticulously explored the issue of torture, enhanced interrogations, the War on Terror, and the law. That was exactly what lawyers like John Yoo, David Addington, Jim Haynes, Steve Bradbury and other lawyers did when they wrote what are considered the ‘nefarious torture memos’ now. Writing in-depth analysis into the heart and soul of security and the law warranted harassment by the fringe left at their private residences and even possible criminal indictments from Congress.
In the end, Senator Grassley, Liz Cheney, Keep America Safe, and FoxNews were asking their government a question regarding the most important issue facing our Federal government. This should be an issue that Conservatives and some libertarian-leaning friends can unite around, considering both consider the Federal government’s central role to be protecting citizens. We have a right to ask questions regarding our safety; and the Obama Administration has a right to not answer us. But don’t get your panties in a bunch when you get called out for promising transparency, and again fail to deliver on your campaign promise. It’s politics. Grow up.
-rj
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