Monday, September 10th, 2007...2:22 pm
Right to Counsel
Those of us on this side of the political fence are branded as unamerican or abetting terrorism for even suggesting that maybe invading Iraq wasn’t such a great idea, and maybe we should think about bringing home our troops, I dunno, within a few years give or take. Even the mildest finger wagging regarding administration policy in the “War on Terrorism” brings the thunderbolts down.
If we are all pro-terrorist quislings, what does that make a guy who actually helped out the defense for the guys that blew up Pan Am flight 103? We call that guy a presidential candidate. A Republican presidential candidate even.
Yep, as it turns out, Fred Dalton Thompson, late of Law and Order and two episodes of Matlock, advised lawyers defending the suspects, abeit only billing 3.3 hours.
I recognize that in our system, no matter how much of a sleazeball you are, you are entitled to a defense. It doesn’t matter if you are Jeffery Dahmer, Ted Bundy or even Paris Hilton, you still get a lawyer. Our system simply doesn’t work without this right.
One has to wonder though what the furor would be from Bill O’Reilly and company if this had been a Democratic candidate. Heck, one doesn’t even have to wonder too much, given that administration flacks were suggesting action against law firms that represent Guantanamo Bay detainees.
So, now comes the ironic part. Thompson’s defenders will now be talking about the right to counsel and due process, even for accused terrorists. Which is exactly what civil libertarians have been arguing for, and getting criticized by people like Thompson for, for the past five years.
4 Comments
September 11th, 2007 at 7:17 am
Ted, did you have to associate poor Paris Hilton with serial killers?
September 11th, 2007 at 7:33 am
Yes.
September 11th, 2007 at 7:39 am
Oh, but of course the party of Fred Thompson is in a high dudgeon this morning over the MOVEON.Org ad bringing attention to the credibility problem that Gen. Petraeus must overcome while trying to convince us that we’re really winning over in Iraq.
For some reason, Randy Pullen’s press-release machine didn’t churn out an attack on Fred for “aiding and abetting the enemy.”
September 12th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Well, Grover Norquist continued to have contacts with radical Islamicists even after 9/11, and as far as I know they never revoked his welcome pass at the White House or at conservative think tanks.
Further, I’d add this (pasted from an article I wrote a couple of years ago but still apropos here):
Consider that in fact these Islamicists have much the same social agenda as conservatism: A theological outlook in which morality is the foundation for society, in which schools and other social institutions are based on a religious underpinning, and in which such perceived immorality as abortion, pornography, pre-marital or extra-marital sex and homosexuality is elevated to the level of a serious crime, sometimes even punishable by death. Islamicists also espouse a society in which government is fundamentally weak and real decisions are made by a council of Clerics, and religious institutions also oversee and decide on the distribution of social welfare. Prayers are offered in every classroom, scriptural doctrine including creationism is taught masquerading as science, women are expected to remain virginal and pure until marriage and then be subservient to their husbands, and political campaigns are conducted through mosques. True, the name of God is different, but the basic structure is very much the same as what some social conservatives would like America to be like. The Islamicists are fighting against having a secular government, so why would Americans who are against having a secular government put much of their heart into the fight?
Honestly, do you TRUST social conservatives to run the war against terror? To paraphrase an old saying, it is hard to get a man to fight very hard against his brother, and social conservatism and radical Islamicism are brothers in spirit if not in fact. I suspect that Grover Norquist is not the only conservative leader who at least at some level sympathizes with Islamic extremists, and we absolutely cannot have such people leading us in our fight against these fanatics. At the end of the day it is much easier and much more natural for a conservative to order and want to win a war against a secular dictator with a history of socialism like Saddam Hussein than against people who deep down he admires, sympathizes with and and whose society in many ways is the model he would like to see for America.
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