{"id":782,"date":"2010-03-06T02:32:14","date_gmt":"2010-03-06T10:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=782"},"modified":"2010-03-06T02:32:14","modified_gmt":"2010-03-06T10:32:14","slug":"even-conservatives-oppose-the-lizard-of-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/03\/06\/even-conservatives-oppose-the-lizard-of-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"Even Conservatives Oppose the Lizard of Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"

First here is video of Liz Cheney\u2019s attack ad, condemning Eric Holder for hiring lawyers who had previously represented detainees held in the GOP Gulag in Guantanamo.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"Lizard\"<\/a> The backlash is growing against Liz Cheney after she demonized Department of Justice attorneys as terrorist sympathizers for their past legal work defending Gitmo detainees — and now it’s coming from within deeply conservative legal circles. <\/p>\n

On Friday, the conservative blog Power Line put up a post titled, "An Attack That Goes Too Far." Author Paul Mirengoff, called Cheney’s effort<\/a> to brand DoJ officials the "Al Qaeda 7," "vicious" and "unfounded" even if it was right to criticize defense lawyers for voluntarily doing work on behalf of Gitmo detainees. <\/p>\n

Reached on the phone, Mirengoff offered an even sharper rebuke, contrasting what Cheney is doing to the anti-communist crusades launched by Sen. Joseph McCarthy and, in some respects, finding it worse. <\/p>\n

"It could be worse than some of the assertions made by McCarthy, depending on some of the validity of those assertions," Mirengoff said, explaining that at least McCarthy was correct in pinpointing individuals as communist sympathizers. "It is just baseless to suggest that [these DoJ officials] share al Qaeda values… they didn’t actually say it but I think it was a fair implication of what they were saying."<\/p>\n

Mirengoff isn’t alone among conservative legal theorists who think the ad campaign by Cheney’s group, Keep America Safe, is distasteful. In a statement to the American Prospect, John Bellinger III, a former legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, called the effort "unfortunate." <\/p>\n

"It reflects the politicization and the polarization of terrorism issues," Bellinger said<\/a>. "Neither Republicans nor Democrats should be attacking officials in each other’s administrations based solely on the clients they have represented in the past."<\/p>\n

Likewise, the Huffington Post reported on Thursday<\/a> that back in 2007, Ted Olson — who served as a lead counsel in Bush v. Gore and solicitor general of the United States — co-authored an article for Legal Times in which he said that efforts to demonize detainee defense lawyers are antithetical to American values.<\/p>\n

"When government officials are called ‘war criminals’ and when public-interest lawyers are called ‘terrorist huggers,’ it not only cheapens the discourse, it scrambles the dialogue," Olson wrote, along with Neal Katyal, currently a DoJ Deputy Solicitor General and one of the lawyers who represented Gitmo detainees. "The best solutions to these difficult problems will emerge only when the best advocates, backed by weighty resources, bring their talents to bear. And the heavy work of creating solutions for these complicated issues can only move forward when the name-calling ceases." <\/p>\n

Cheney, for her part, shows no signs of relenting…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Huffington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

I think the Lizard was too stupid to realize just how wide a net she was casting, as dozens of GOP lawyers have done the exact same thing.<\/font><\/p>\n

Here, Lawrence O\u2019Donnell and David Corn discuss the issue in more depth.<\/font><\/p>\n

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Lawyers are professional liars.  It\u2019s their job, so we have to cut them some slack about it.  In our adversarial justice system zealous representation is both a right and a necessity.  Even if lawyers believe the exact opposite of what they are saying, it is their sworn duty to say it as though it were their most cherished belief.<\/font><\/p>\n

For Lizard Cheney to produce this attack ad is a despicable shot below the belt.  While it says nothing genuine about the integrity of the lawyers she accuses, this ad speaks volumes about hers.<\/font><\/p>\n

As a side note, given their professional expertise, perhaps lawyers should be excluded from running for public office as legislators.  Only the most successful lawyers do so and to achieve that success, they must be the most accomplished liars.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First here is video of Liz Cheney\u2019s attack ad, condemning Eric Holder for hiring lawyers who had previously represented detainees held in the GOP Gulag in Guantanamo.   The backlash is growing against Liz Cheney after she demonized Department of Justice attorneys as terrorist sympathizers for their past legal work defending Gitmo detainees — and […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}