When Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of the formervice president, questions the loyalty of anyone who stands up for the humanrights of prisoners in the "war on terror," she is treading veryclose to that line.
Operating behind a front group called Keep AmericaSafe, Cheney and her associate, the journalist William Kristol, say there is ashadowy group of lawyers within the Justice Department that supposedly servedthe cause of "jihad" by representing detainees.
According to them, those attorneys and any otherswho represent detained suspects are "aiding and abetting America'senemies" by filing lawsuits, thus transforming our courthouses into yetanother theater of terrorist attack. Through those legal actions, the lawyersare undermining the moral authority of the war on terror and creating obstaclesfor the military and intelligence officials charged with defending us. And byaccusing the U.S.authorities of violating the prisoners' human rights, they are "echoingthe propaganda" of the jihadists.
The clear implication of these arguments is thatthese attorneys are guilty of treason.
But if arguing for the rights of prisoners is traitorousindeed,if merely representing a Gitmo detainee is disloyaltythen the roster ofperfidy extends far beyond the seven lawyers at the Justice Department who werethe immediate targets of Cheney, Kristol and their gang. The list would have toencompass dozens of military and retired military leaders, starting with Gen.Colin Powell and then including dozens of flag officers, military judges andlegislators who have served in battle.
That list of subversives and sellouts would alsohave to include dozens of upstanding Republicans whose law firms have performedpro bono work on behalf of terrorist suspects, such as Rudolph Giuliani. Worsestill, the list must include the United States Supreme Court, which has upheldthe rights of detainees under both the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions.It is hard to imagine a greater victory for enemy propaganda than a ruling inthe nation's highest court.
Beck Insults Decency (Again)
When Glenn Beck vilifies "social justice"as a "perversion of the Gospel" and slanders churches and pastors as"Nazis" for pursuing it, he too is trespassing a bright line. The FOXNews personalitywho rants and weeps like the late Joseph McCarthyurges hislisteners to run away from any congregation where social justice is preached.He instructs them to denounce any pastor who even mentions the term. He evenheld up pictures of a swastika and a hammer and sickle to somehow demonstratethat "social justice" is a code phrase whose hidden meaning isidentical to Nazism and communism.
Poor Beck evidently does not realize that his ownMormon Church is deeply committed to the social justice teachings of theGospelsor that the Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists andadherents of other faiths in this country all share similar values on thatquestion. By attacking them, in his megalomania and ignorance, he has rippedinto an ethical tradition that unites our country.
The best historical parallel to these extremisttrespasses can be found back in the ’50s, when McCarthy, the John Birch Societyand other elements of the far right were riding high. What brought them downwere their excesses: in McCarthy's case, when he and his staff sought toimplicate the United States Army in the communist conspiracy; and in the caseof the Birchers, when they proclaimed that President Eisenhower and the SupremeCourt, among other august persons and institutions, were wittingly aiding thecommunists.
Our current crop of crazies is approaching thatpoint of no returnand if we are fortunate, they will keep going.
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