The Corner - National Review Online
[Jonah Goldberg on the "al Qaeda lawyers"]
Frankly, I don't quite get the controversy over the controversy. I just read USA Today's and Andy's back and forth (linked below). Also, I listened to a conversation on the Diane Rehm show yesterday on the subject and there was near unanimity that Keep America Safe represented the return of Joe McCarthy. (And I have to say that if they put Brad Berenson on the panel for balance, he did no one, including himself, any favors. Which is too bad, because I like Berenson).
Anyway, was the Keep America Safe ad too strident? Maybe. Reasonable people can differ on that. But on the general question of whether it's permissible in a democratic society to criticize lawyers for the kinds of clients they take, I'm baffled as to how this suddenly became a serious debate. And on the question of whether it is legitimate to question the past clients of lawyers working in the Justice Department, all I can say is "huh?"
Take the first point. When did lawyers become this infallible priesthood of do-gooders? As a general rule, mob lawyers are somewhat less admirable than, say, first-amendment lawyers. Personal-injury lawyers understandably get less respect than civil-rights lawyers. I spent much of the 1990s listening to liberals like James Carville demonize dirty, filthy, "tobacco lawyers." Of course, honorable lawyers sometimes pick unsavory or unpopular clients on principle. I think reasonable people can debate the merits of those decisions. I think it ludicrous, however, to simply have a flat rule that any lawyer who represents any unpopular villain is heroic — and beyond criticism — for doing so. Just as I think it would be ludicrous to have a blanket policy of condemning as villainous any lawyer who represents any criminal. (And let us put aside the fundamental argument about whether al-Qaeda detainees are "criminals" in the conventional sense).
Then there's the twofold issue of these lawyers working for DOJ and the administration keeping their identities a secret. How is this not a legitimate issue? I don't get it. As USA Today concedes, lawyers who defended al-Qaeda suspects need to recuse themselves from these matters. Everyone concedes that there are conflict of interest issues here. Are we to suddenly believe that Congress has no right to inquire about such things? Tell that to environmentalists who want lawyers for "polluters" kept out of the EPA. Seriously, has no one listened to Henry Waxman for the last 30 years? Do Obama's countless promises to be "transparent" have no validity when it comes to these lawyers? Why on earth would that be the case?
And yet, to listen to Holder's defenders, the people who ask these questions are being denounced as demagogues and (Joe) McCarthyites. This is coming from the same crowd that wanted to criminally prosecute Bush's lawyers? Spare me.
Is this really a standard the Left wants to establish? That policymaking lawyers inside the Justice Department will hence forth have a cloak of invisibility about their previous activities? That's going to be tough news for any number of left-wing activist groups come the next Republican administration.
From NRO: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzgyOTE2M2Y3NzNkYmY2YjI2NzRhYTk2MDVkYjg0M2U=
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