My Least Favorite Cheney
Vice President Dick Cheney always impressed me as the most dangerous and vicious member of the Bush administration. He seemed to regard war as the answer to every foreign policy problem, and his contempt for the Constitution and civil liberties was legendary.
But his daughter, Liz Cheney, seems determined to outdo her father with respect to both of those repulsive attitudes. She is fast becoming my least favorite Cheney.
Her organization, which has become a prominent lobbyist for war with Iran, has now taken dead aim at supposed terrorist sympathizers in the Obama administration.  Television ads are now running attacking the president for appointing officials to the Justice Department who had previously served as defense counsels–or even just peripheral members of defense teams–for accused terrorist suspects. Smearing those attorneys as the “Al Qaeda Seven,” the ad implies that such legal work should disqualify them from appointments to office.
That is a “guilt by association” attack that would have made Senator Joseph McCarthy (who was notorious for such tactics) blush.  And it is an especially ugly tactic in this case.  Lawyers are expected to be willing to defend even odious individuals, and they routinely do so. That is part of the code of their profession. It is appallingly unfair to hold that duty against them, much less to imply that they endorse the values of those individuals. Moreover, just because someone is accused of being a terrorist does not necessarily mean that the person is one. That’s why our justice system requires fair trials–and defense attorneys.
If the logic of Liz Cheney and her cohorts was correct, John Adams, America’s second president, should have been disqualified from ever holding any office of trust. After all, he was the defense lawyer for the British Redcoats involved in the Boston Massacre. Got an acquittal, too. Wonder what Liz and her smear artists have to say about that episode?
The good news is that decent conservatives have rebuked Cheney for her odious tactics. People should not have their patriotism or integrity impugned because they uphold the core principles of our legal system. That she would do so says all we need to know about Liz Cheney and her neoconservative associates.
Elaine Bergstrom
I wonder what “decent conservatives” are saying about the recent Supreme Court decision that links humanitarian and legal aid to terrorist groups as a terrorist act. What will this do for, say, Jewish Voices for Peace supporters in the US? Or even, I would say, groups like Mortensen’s IKAT that builds schools in Taliban country.
Comment on Jun 22nd, 2010 at 8:05 pm
tcarpenter
Most conservatives are either silent about this ruling or are endorsing it as a necessary measure in the “war on terror.” I find it a very worrisome precedent, for some of the same examples you cite. In addition, even though the Court opinion says that merely speaking or writing in favor of an organization that the State Department (however arbitrarily) has designated as a terrorist operation is still legal, I suspect that even one phone call or e-mail between the alleged terrorist group and the person making the speech or writing a favorable article would constitute “coordination” and transform that person’s actions into “material support.” That would, in turn, open the speaker or writer to prosecution. It’s always nice to know that the Supreme Court is acting as the guardian of liberty. Yeah, like the Court hasn’t become a total lapdog whenever the executive branch invokes “national security” as a justification for a restrictive measure.
Comment on Jun 25th, 2010 at 8:11 pm