Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 12:00 pm Post subject: The New McCarthyites
Quote:
The national madness known as “McCarthyism” began 60 years ago in Wheeling, W.Va., when Joseph R. McCarthy held up a scrap of paper that supposedly listed the names of 57 State Department officials he said were actually Communists and traitors.
Eventually America learned that the Wisconsin Republican’s famous list was a fabrication, that he was a liar and a demagogue as well as an alcoholic—and that his authoritarian appeals to fear were worse than useless in defending our security. But by then, McCarthyism’s self-serving and fundamentally unpatriotic promoters had inflicted grave damage on the body politic and international prestige of the United States.
Today, McCarthy’s heirs are more slick and glib than he ever was, yet their fundamental methods are the same. When Elizabeth Cheney, William Kristol and their media friends slander Justice Department attorneys as the “Al Qaeda 7” and malign the “Department of Jihad,” they are engaging in the smear tactics that became synonymous with McCarthy. What is different now is the cynical hypocrisy of the new McCarthyites, who know that the flimsy accusations they level against Democrats in the Obama administration could just as easily be turned on Republicans who served President Bush.
Ms. Cheney and Mr. Kristol have charged that certain lawyers in the Justice Department represented alleged terrorists held at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp—and that by so doing, those attorneys rendered themselves unfit for government service. “Whose values do they share?” asks an ominous advertisement aired by their front group, known as Keep America Safe. They mean to insinuate that the values of those Justice Department attorneys, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are somehow closer to the jihadism of Al Qaeda than to those shared by most Americans.
The values that most of us share include honesty and fairness—and this sleazy campaign violates both. If every lawyer who represents someone accused of terrorism is by definition a terrorist sympathizer, then our entire system of justice is in doubt, since it requires counsel for everyone accused of a crime. More specifically, if the lawyers who have counseled terror suspects are by definition untrustworthy, then the dark cloud of suspicion extends well beyond the current roster of the Justice Department—and into the heart of the Republican Party.
As Scott Horton points out in Harper’s magazine, the McCarthyite list would have to include Michael Chertoff, who headed the Justice Department’s criminal division before President Bush nominated him as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Among Mr. Chertoff’s clients in private practice was a New Jersey doctor named Magdy el-Amir, identified as a conduit for money-laundering to Al Qaeda and other jihadist outfits. He became a Chertoff client when the State of New Jersey sued him to recoup illicit money from a health maintenance organization he controlled, which had sent more than $5 million by wire transfers to bank accounts “where the beneficial owner is unknown.” In other words, a very dubious character who had been under surveillance by the F.B.I. for years.
There was never any reason to believe that by representing Mr. el-Amir (who was recently arrested in a prescription drug racket), Mr. Chertoff somehow disqualified himself from government service. But similar phony questions could be raised about Michael Mukasey, the former Bush attorney general whose law firm provides pro bono representation to Guantánamo detainees. Or Rudolph Giuliani, the mayor of 9/11, whose firm has also represented detainees because, like all prisoners, they are entitled to counsel.
If this seems confusing, here’s a simple principle to keep in mind: Representing someone in an American court does not mean agreeing with that person’s actions or ideology. Here’s another: Guilt by association is an unworthy tactic that ought to raise suspicions about those who use it rather than those against whom it is used.
The career of McCarthy and the specter of McCarthyism ended only when a handful of decent Republicans—notably including Prescott Bush, the grandfather of George W. Bush—joined in a Senate resolution of censure against him and his tactics. Perhaps we have witnessed such a moment of truth this week, when 19 prominent Republican attorneys, including Kenneth Starr and several former Bush Justice and Defense Department appointees, denounced the Keep America Safe smears as shameful, unjust and destructive.
Conservatives can effectively discredit this disgraceful campaign—and it is their responsibility to do so.
Rev. Jim Wallis, a member of President Obama's "faith council" who is described as a spiritual adviser to the president, is a socialist activist who has championed communist causes and previously labeled the U.S. "the great captor and destroyer of human life."
Wallis was in the news last week urging Christians to stop watching Fox News host Glenn Beck's program for Beck's remarks against churches that preach "social justice."
The Associated Baptist Press described Wallis as a "politically progressive evangelical and longtime advocate for the poor." The Huffington Post identified Wallis as a "Christian author and social justice advocate."
Wallis, however, is a long time socialist advocate and founder of a far-left magazine, Sojourners, that has championed communist causes.
He currently serves on Obama's White House Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He reportedly is a spiritual adviser to Obama and has known the president for years.
Wallis began his activism as a protester and then later Michigan leader of the Students for a Democratic Society, the 1960's antiwar group from which Bill Ayers' Weatherman domestic terrorist organization splintered.
Discover the Networks said that as a theology student, Wallis founded an anti-capitalism magazine called the Post-American, which identified wealth redistribution and government-managed economies as the keys to achieving "social justice."
In 1971, Wallis renamed his magazine Sojourners. He has since served as editor of the publication.
Sojourners' official "statement of faith" urges readers to "refuse to accept [capitalist] structures and assumptions that normalize poverty and segregate the world by class."
Sojourners has published a slew of radicals, including socialist activist Cornel West and James Cone, considered the founder of Black Liberation Theology, which spawned the likes of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor of nearly 20 years.
Wallis' magazine actively lobbied for communist regimes that seized power in Latin America in the late 1970s, including the Sandinista dictatorship in Nicaragua. Sojourners in the 1980s was a fierce opponent of the U.S. nuclear buildup, claiming the policy was "an intolerable evil" irreconcilably at odds with Christianity.
Discover the Networks notes how Sojourners originally formed a socialist commune in Washington, D.C., where members shared finances and launched anti-capitalist activism . . . _________________ "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."
Samuel Adams
Perhaps we have witnessed such a moment of truth this week, when 19 prominent Republican attorneys, including Kenneth Starr and several former Bush Justice and Defense Department appointees, denounced the Keep America Safe smears as shameful, unjust and destructive.
Conservatives can effectively discredit this disgraceful campaign—and it is their responsibility to do so.
The country is waiting. _________________ "Don't worry about avoiding temptation... as you grow older, it will avoid you."
- Winston Churchill
Perhaps we have witnessed such a moment of truth this week, when 19 prominent Republican attorneys, including Kenneth Starr and several former Bush Justice and Defense Department appointees, denounced the Keep America Safe smears as shameful, unjust and destructive.
Conservatives can effectively discredit this disgraceful campaign—and it is their responsibility to do so.
AND is making a big comeback right now. Communists here, communist there, communists everywhere!
Only now they are called 'progressives'. Don't worry, conservatives nationwide are holding them at bay and this year we will eradicate their national influence from the political landscape. _________________ "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."
Samuel Adams
Only now they are called 'progressives'. Don't worry, conservatives nationwide are holding them at bay and this year we will eradicate their national influence from the political landscape.
Don't you wish. Me thinks you'all put too much hope in the coming election.
The cleaning out took place last election. I ain't going anywhere. It's too much fun watching yall doing hissy fits over the whipping you got.
_________________ "Don't worry about avoiding temptation... as you grow older, it will avoid you."
- Winston Churchill
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Me thinks you'all put too much hope in the coming election.