I understand the public outcry against lawyers, recently stoked by the situation at the Department of Justice (DOJ).  For those not familiar with this news, Attorney General (AG) Eric Holder is in a pitched battle with members of the Senate over the backgrounds of nine attorneys working at DOJ.  Apparently, each of those attorneys have either represented or advocated for terrorist detainees.  Two have been identified: Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal was lead counsel for Guantanamo detainees in the Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld; Jennifer Daskal advocated for Guantanamo detainees with Human Rights Watch (HRW).

A little background on their background:

Hamdan focused on the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) established under Executive Order by former President George W. Bush in 2001.  CSRT determination was crucial to understanding detainee rights under the Geneva Conventions (adopted by the US), which grant specific rights to lawful enemy combatants (see Article 4) and are silent in regards to unlawful enemy combatants (see Article 5).  CSRTs were a form of military commission.  The main problem the Supreme Court had with CSRTs is that they were not “regularly constituted courts” under the Geneva Convention because our Constitution grants Congress the power of establishing courts.  So Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which was partially struck down by the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush (but that is a story for another day).

HRW is “dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world.”  It sounds nice, but the group admits to “targeted advocacy.”  Started in 1978, HRW focused on the atrocities committed by the Evil Empire of the Soviet Union. When the Evil Empire collapsed in 1991, HRW decided to shift its main attention to the “Evil Republic” of the US.  I suppose HRW decided it could not fire the vast amount of people needed to identify atrocities committed by the Evil Empire, and there was only one major power left.  I also gather that it is a little easier to address “atrocities” committed by the US, as opposed to atrocities committed by China or Russia.

AG Holder refuses to identify the remaining seven lawyers, and in fact, there may be more lawyers with similar backgrounds.

Now we get to the point where you may initially disagree.  While AG Holder should identify the remaining seven attorneys (promises of transparency notwithstanding) this should not turn into a witch-hunt.  Some attorneys have an agenda in targeting certain clients and cases, but most attorneys simply practice their profession.  Lawyers get a bad rap because you often hear about the bad ones.  I am guilty of this, and sparked some expected backlash against lawyers, in general. What you have to remember is that there is ALWAYS a lawyer on the other side, and it is a lawyer’s duty to represent his client to the fullest extent of the law.  And sometimes you have no control over who your client is.

John Yoo comes to mind.  Mr. Yoo was recently vindicated from allegations of professional misconduct for legal opinions pertaining to enhanced interrogation techniques, among others, during his tenure at DOJ under former President George W. Bush. In fact, the DOJ attorneys accusing Mr. Yoo are probably deserving of allegations of professional misconduct.  The controversy over his opinions centers on one addressing a principle of international law called jus cogens.  These are peremptory norms in international law from which states may not derogate.  Not necessarily contained in any treaties adopted by the US, it is a list of international no-no’s.  Piracy was one of the first, followed by slavery, genocide and torture.  The problem with these principles is that they are not clearly defined under international law, but are really only understood through practice and state (national) law.  Keeping this in mind, Mr. Yoo was asked to outline the limits of Executive authority to interrogate detainees within the confines of US law, including treaties adopted by the US.

The point is that Mr. Yoo had a client who wanted a result.  His job, as an attorney, was to satisfy his client to the extent the law would allow him, and our common law system allows for a lot of leeway when laws are not directly on point.  We do not have to agree with his opinion, but that should not necessarily extend to the man.  Understanding this, I can fathom why AG Holder is stone-walling.  Communications between DOJ attorneys should be as protected as communications between any other Executive branch officials, assuming nothing on par with Nixon is occurring.  However, AG Holder should not be allowed to withhold the identities of those attorneys.  The public should be able to weigh in on the decisions of any president’s administration, especially when the officials at issue are not subject to confirmation by the Senate.  This sort of conduct by the AG only heightens the public sense that something nefarious may be afoot.  Transparency would limit that affect.

So as I stated earlier, I understand the public outcry against lawyers, but lawyers are people, too.  They have families, work obscene hours, span the political spectrum, and a lot of them feel the pressures of the present state of the economy.  Perhaps these DOJ attorneys should be subjected to scrutiny by the Senate but let us not jump to conclusions.  At this point, the only bad actor is AG Holder, and he should not be representative of the entire legal profession.

Despite what European Socialists may think of us, Americans are not entirely stupid.  While the well-oiled hype machine of the Left-biased news media and the air headed Hollywood crowd helped to induce the large scale brain freeze that got Obama elected, as his serious failures of policy have mounted and the significant impact of those failures is felt, no amount of propaganda will suffice to resurrect the messianic fervor that once surrounded the heady days of Obama’s campaign.  Daily some new facet of the administration’s incompetence (at best) and fecklessness (at worst) is displayed, and increasing numbers of those who initially fell under his thrall are awakening to the profound danger Obama’s Presidency poses to both world peace and our American way of life.

Despite the Left’s inability to speak the word “evil,” the world has always had some very bad people who delight in bringing misery to others.  Add to them the corrupting influences of power, religious fanaticism, or monetary gain, and the result is a toxic brew that must be fought by people of good will in every generation.  Evil exists in every age and simply morphs from one guise into another.  Now that Nazism and Communism have largely been vanquished, the greatest evil has manifested itself in Islamism.  Make no mistake, those evil people are watching carefully as the Obama administration lurches between its ruinous domestic agenda (the government health care takeover, cap and tax, quadrupling the deficit, etc.) and its catastrophic foreign policy decisions (legitimizing thugs like Chavez, abandoning the missile defense of Eastern Europe, dithering for months over the decision to send troops to Afghanistan, appeasing Iran, etc.)  This weak indecisiveness projected by the Obama administration is perceived around the world as a sign of America’s renewed vulnerability and it is not a coincidence that soon after castrating our intelligence forces, (is our Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, truly as brain-dead as she appears?) Muslim fanatics have become reenergized and are beginning to probe our defenses again.  We have been kept safe for the past eight years due solely to the dedication of those charged with protecting us and thanks to their extraordinary show of resolve and might, Islamists have, until now, been cowed.  However, Al Qaeda and their ilk can see we are no longer serious about maintaining our national security.  Had we been, monstrous events like the Fort Hood Jihadist and the Christmas Day airliner attack would not have taken place.  Both events had ample warning and could have easily been prevented were it not for the systemic rot of political correctness and the corrosive impact of incompetent leadership.

What will it take for our President, his administration and the Far-Left-commandeered Democratic Party to grow up and seriously address issues of national security?   Increasingly, it has become apparent that children have been elected to govern us.  These children maintain a stubborn belief that they can force the world to conform to their fantasies just because they wish them to be true.  (If we simply extend the hand of friendship and/or grovel sufficiently, the Jihadis will like us and leave us alone.)  In light of the sober reality of hundreds of crazed Muslim killers lined up in Yemen to blow themselves to pieces, is there no one in this present administration with the grown-up sense to advise that the “reset button” be pushed to return us to proven policies of the Bush years – policies that demonstrably kept us safe?  Or is the hubris of Obama, Biden, Holder, Napolitano, Pelosi, et al so overwhelming that they are willing to sacrifice American lives for the sake of clinging to their naive ideas about human nature and the existence of evil in the world?

I hope the former takes place, but I’m not holding my breath.  More than anything else, the 2008 election proved that whom we elect has consequences.  Not once during the run-up to that election did Democrat candidates mention the subject of Islamic terror in their debates, while it was discussed in every single one of the Republican debates.   That said a lot.  It underscored the fact that the feelings-based, childish worldview of the Left makes it impossible for them to understand what it takes to protect American citizens.  Now, in the immortal words of President Obama’s mentor and spiritual counselor, Jeremiah Wright, “the chickens are coming home to roost” as the consequences of voting children into office are becoming painfully apparent.  Our first chance to begin to undo some of the damage will come in 2010.  I just pray that enough Americans awaken in time.