Via Andrew Sullivan:
Liz Cheney ratchets up the disgusting campaign led by Senator Chuck Grassley to impugn DOJ appointees who represented Gitmo detainees. Ackerman:
You know, [the lawyers who] provided the representation that the Rehnquist and Roberts Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled those detainees are entitled? And which even the military commissions provide for? Instead, there’s this McCarthyite tactic of calling Justice Department lawyers the “Gitmo Nine,” a name that oh-so-cleverly suggests that those lawyers were themselves detained at Guantanamo.
Liz Cheney, of course, redubbed them the “Al-Qaeda Seven.” And she wants names named. How very McCarthyite of her.
Grassley knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s taking one of the strengths of the American justice system — the fact that everyone is entitled to legal representation — and implying that it’s unseemly. It’s a testament to the weakness of his character that he will never forthrightly accuse these attorneys of what he’s implying — sympathy with accused terrorists — in a way that they could refute. What a pathetic excuse for a man. Those of us in the media have an obligation to call this smear campaign what it is.
I won’t hold my breath on the media calling them out.
Could someone tell me why Republicans hate our justice system and why anyone takes their Constitution blather and Founding Fathers quoting seriously? These people would have labeled John Adams a terrorist sympathizer.