Right Wing Employs McCarthyite Tactics To Smear DoJ Lawyers As Terrorist ?Abettors? And ?Coddlers?
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on March 3rd, 2010 5:39 am by HL
Right Wing Employs McCarthyite Tactics To Smear DoJ Lawyers As Terrorist ?Abettors? And ?Coddlers?
For the past several months, much to the delight of the right wing, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has been leading an aggressive effort to impugn the motives of Obama appointees in the Department of Justice, whom he alleges are embroiled in a “conflict of interest” because they at one point advocated that Guantanamo detainees be […]
For the past several months, much to the delight of the right wing, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has been leading an aggressive effort to impugn the motives of Obama appointees in the Department of Justice, whom he alleges are embroiled in a “conflict of interest” because they at one point advocated that Guantanamo detainees be tried according to the rule of law. Grassley has been on a vengeful witch-hunt to identify the names of DoJ lawyers who have “either represented Guantanamo detainees or worked for groups who advocated for them,” with the likely intention of purging them.
Last month, the Justice Department acknowledged to Grassley that at least nine appointees in the agency had previously advocated for the rule of law with respect to detainee treatment in Guantanamo, but Attorney General Eric Holder refused to disclose the names of these lawyers. Grassley dismissed the DoJ response as “bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo” and demanded to know the identities of those appointees.
Employing “McCarthyite tactics,” the crack investigative squad at the Washington Times has undertaken the task of identifying each of the lawyers. Liz Cheney’s neoconservative outfit Keep America Safe has released an ad today ominously warning of the anonymous “al Qaeda seven” in the Justice Department:
In a coordinated assault, a plethora of other right wing voices are issuing similarly irresponsible charges:
– The American Spectator escalates the number of potential terrorist “abettors” in the Department of Justice from 9 to “as many as 13 to 16.”
– David Davenport, a researcher at the conservative Hoover Institution, wrote in an editorial for the San Francisco Chronicle, “The Department of Justice is supposed to be prosecuting terrorists, not coddling them.”
– The Investor’s Business Daily headlines its editorial: “DOJ: Department of Jihad?” “Just whose side are they on?” IBD asks.
– “It’s like they’re bringing al Qaeda lawyers inside the Department of Justice,” said Debra Burlingame, who lost her brother on 9/11 and a board member of Liz Cheney’s group Keep America Safe.
Many on the right have conveniently neglected to mention that the United States Supreme Court sided with the Obama attorneys. One of the targeted attorneys is Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, the lawyer who won Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the case that struck down the Bush administration’s military commissions system. Another target, Justice Department lawyer Jennifer Daskal, had signed her name to an amicus brief in the Boumediene v. Bush case arguing that Gitmo detainees be accorded habeas corpus rights to challenge their convictions. The Supreme Court sided with Daskal’s position.
So the bottom line is that, having been on the losing side of these Supreme Court decisions, the right wing has decided to continue its vindictive fight by smearing the lawyers who prevailed in their advocacy for the rule of law.
New report finds that right-wing extremist groups have grown 244 percent in the past year.
A new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center has unearthed shocking data about the rise of militias, antigovernment groups, and other right-wing extremist groups. The report, titled “Rage on the Right,” has found that there has been an increase of 244 percent in the number of these extremist groups in 2009: The number of […]
A new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center has unearthed shocking data about the rise of militias, antigovernment groups, and other right-wing extremist groups. The report, titled “Rage on the Right,” has found that there has been an increase of 244 percent in the number of these extremist groups in 2009:
The number of extremist groups in the United States exploded in 2009 as militias and other groups steeped in wild, antigovernment conspiracy theories exploited populist anger across the country and infiltrated the mainstream, according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Antigovernment “Patriot” groups – militias and other extremist organizations that see the federal government as their enemy – came roaring back to life over the past year after more than a decade out of the limelight.
The SPLC documented a 244 percent increase in the number of active Patriot groups in 2009. Their numbers grew from 149 groups in 2008 to 512 groups in 2009, an astonishing addition of 363 new groups in a single year. Militias – the paramilitary arm of the Patriot movement – were a major part of the increase, growing from 42 militias in 2008 to 127 in 2009.
Early last year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned about the rise of “rightwing extremism in the United States,” sparking an uproar among many on the right who derided DHS’s warning as merely “paranoid accusations of liberal bloggers.”
