Liz Cheney Dubs DOJ Lawyers Defending Detainees “The Al-Qaeda Seven”

Proving that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Liz Cheney’s group, “Keep America Safe,” which she co-founded with Bill Kristol,  implies that lawyers who defend the constitutional rights of detainees are terrorist sympathizers.  (h/t People for the American Way).

[The video they put out, below,] attempts to create political leverage from the fact that nine attorneys who volunteered to represent detainees at Guantanamo have since been hired as lawyers at the Department of Justice. The Washington Times editorial board has labeled the lawyers as “The Gitmo Nine.” Investors Business Daily has renamed the DOJ as the “Department of Jihad” and wondered “just whose side are they on?”

Perhaps some of our right-wing “patriots” have forgotten that a right to an attorney is fundamental to our justice system. As Air Force Colonel Morris Davis, who was the military’s chief prosecutor at Gitmo, put it:

“It is absolutely outrageous for the Cheney-Grassley crowd to try to tar and feather (these attorneys) and insinuate they are al-Qaeda supporters. You don’t hear anyone refer to John Adams as a turncoat for representing the Brits in the Boston Massacre trial,” Davis said. “If you zealously represent a client, there’s nothing shameful about that. That’s the American way.”

And as Michael B. Keegan, president of People for the American Way, eloquently states:

“If Liz Cheney wants to talk about ‘keeping America safe,’ perhaps she should be reminded of the fact that her father, as Vice President, led the spectacularly flawed response to 9-11, which profoundly imperiled our safety and our international reputation. She has done little but attack others to defend his disastrous legacy. Her credibility on this issue is virtually non-existent.

“Joseph McCarthy himself couldn’t have done a better job of using fear and insinuations to smear his political enemies. Most Americans understand that McCarthyism was a shameful chapter in American history, but the Cheney wing of the Republican Party seems to have embraced Senator McCarthy’s utter lack of shame.

“Senator McCarthy’s campaign of smears and fear mongering ended when Joseph Welch asked ‘At long last, have you left no sense of decency?’ Someone should ask Liz Cheney the same question.”

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.