Chickenhawk

Chickenhawk

The Washington Post’s Michael Gerson wrote the most cowardly chickenhawk op-ed I have seen in a long time. I know I should not take the bait, but somehow can’t stop myself. He asks:

So how did Holder become the most destructive member of Barack Obama’s Cabinet?

Apparently Gerson finds fault with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to review a 2004 investigation by a DOJ task force in the Eastern District of Virginia which examined allegations of misconduct against the CIA. The task force found insufficient evidence of criminal conduct or intent. Holder appointed his own special prosecutor to review the investigation and its conclusion. Gerson thinks this means that Holder is “appeasing a political constituency that wanted the CIA to be hounded and punished.”

You may recall investigations during the Bush administration were conducted in an atmosphere chilled by marginalization in concert with career assistant U.S. attorneys being hounding out of office. The intimidation of AUSAs began almost from the time Bush took office in 2001 and would escalate all the way to the mass firing of U.S. Attorneys who did not “play ball” with Bushco. Is it any wonder that Holder wants to double check the conclusions asserted in that environment?

Gerson asserts that

morale at a front-line agency* in the war on terrorism has plunged. What possible reason could a bright, ambitious intelligence professional have to pursue a career in counterterrorism when the attorney general of the United States is stubbornly intent on exposing and undermining his colleagues?

* I’m guessing he means the CIA.

What we want are bright ETHICAL intelligence professionals;, not ethical relativists who put their ambition ahead of their obligations.

At this point, Gerson starts spreading the insults around, complaining that Holder displays an “exaggerated respect” for the work of career federal prosecutors in New York.

I admit I have a conflict of interest and a real bias here, but I don’t see any exaggeration. The Attorney General correctly listed the prosecutorial achievements of the flagship U.S. Attorney’s Office. Don’t blame the Southern District of New York for having good lawyers.

Gerson thinks AUSAs from SDNY will have difficulty making the case against five 9/11 conspirators, in a “circus atmosphere,”with “an uncertain chain of evidence (gathered on a battlefield),” and “under a cloud of torture allegations that Holder himself has encouraged.”

My understanding is that much (or maybe all) of the evidence was not “gathered on a battlefield.” If the bulk (or all) of the evidence is pre-capture, the torture allegations won’t taint it.

Gerson claims that the ONLY serious argument favoring trial in the civilian criminal justice system is that it will confer greater legitimacy on the imposition of the death penalty, but that really won’t matter because nobody will care about the procedural niceties that led up to the sentencing of accused terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

WRONG! I care, I care a lot. I care because that trial is the answer to the Bush regime’s wholesale repudiation of the Constitution. And the world cares; it cares whether or not the U.S. will once again strive to live up to the ideals of its founders.

Now for the canned GOP talking point:

In exchange for a marginal public relations advantage, America will be subjected to the airing of intelligence sources and methods, to the posturing of mass murderers fully aware of their terrorist star power, to the possibility of mistrial and procedural acquittal, and to an increased threat of revenge attacks against New York.

Good gravy, grow a pair will you, you coward.

Holder seemed to concede this last complication by asserting that New York is “hardened” against possible terrorism. If I were a New Yorker, that would fall into the category of chilly comfort.

I actually am a native New Yorker, born and bred.

You know what was “chilly comfort”? Condoleezza Rice saying, “no one could have anticipated” after the “My Pet Goat” reader-in-chief dismissed the CIA briefer who tried to warn him that al Qaeda wanted to fly planes into buildings, telling the briefer he had covered his ass. You know what else was chilly comfort? Watching Shrub take a photo op with NYC firefighters and then treating Homeland Secuirty funding like some kind of pork barrel slush fund and sending it to places which have never shown up in any terrorists’ plans just to bolster support in red states.

Gerson contends that Holder’s decision to send some for civilian trial and others for Military Comission trial is “ memorable for its incoherence”.

Wrong again! He sent a trial relating to a military target to a military court and trial related to civilian targets to a civilian court. There is logic in that, not incoherence.

Gerson thinks that KSM’s only goal in life is to make a dramatic speech and that sending him for civilian trial will grant KSM his wish.

KSM’s words at other hearings would be reported in the press anyway. There is no extra coverage just because it is a civilian trial. What’s Gerson’s point?

It is not typical that Holder’s immediate predecessor, Michael Mukasey, has called the plan for trials in Manhattan a risky “social experiment” that will raise the risk of attack “very high.”

I don’t really understand what he means by “social experiment.” Having presided over one of the trials, Judge Mukasey well knows that Janet Reno and her predecessors at DOJ managed to investigate, arrest and prosecute terrorists just fine. Holder evidently thinks that the current generation of AUSAs is up to the job.

Does Gerson fear that SDNY has also been infiltrated by Monica Goodling’s Regent Law grads? Is he suggesting that the SDNY Hiring Committee’s standards slipped during the Bush years, as they did in some other offices? Now THAT would be upsetting. No one thus far has suggested that SDNY was infected with political hackery alleged at other USAOs. Is Gerson breaking a scoop? If so, he really buried his lead at the very end of his article. Or maybe he is just slandering the most respected USAO in the whole country? You decide.

Now for the best hyperbole of the whole damn article:

Something unique and frightening is taking place: The ACLU is effectively being put in charge of the war on terrorism.

I DID NOT MAKE THAT UP. That is a real quote from the article. If I were going to make up a fake quote, I lack the imagination to think of something that inventive.

The ACLU has no, zero, zilch role in the war on terror. They don’t investigate terror, they don’t prosecute it, they don’t do anti-terror disruption work, NADA. They simply defend suspects and/or litigate points of Constitutional law. Seriously, dude, you gotta’ stop making stuff up.

Now for topsy turvey world, Gerson says the following AS IF IT’S A BAD THING:

Holder’s liberal principles have become “detached” from the real-world struggle against terrorism: Let justice be done, though the heavens, and buildings, fall.

Dude, you’re quoting /paraphrasing Lord Mansfield! And, yes, that’s what they teach us in law school. It’s a virtue not a vice. Ya’ big silly, you. Here’s the full quote:

The constitution does not allow reasons of state to influence our judgment. God forbid it should! We must not regard political consequences, however formidable they might be; if rebellion was the certain consequence, we are bound to say, Justitia fiat, ruat coelum—Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
—Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of England (Rex v. Wilkes, 1768)

This rule of law thingy? It’s been around for a while. In fact, legend has it that that Mansfield cribbed that quote from ancient Rome.

Finally, Gerson reveals the real motivation driving this op-ed:

Wartime American presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt have understood that the Constitution is not a suicide pact. So enemy combatants consistently have been judged by a different and harsher legal standard than American citizens.[1] Whatever his initial assurances, Holder does not believe America is at war with terrorists.
Even worse, he seems determined to undermine those who do.

Oh, so now you are into mind reading? Do you also do card tricks?

NOW you reveal your real gripe, Gerson; Holder is undermining the chicken hawks who holler “Terra! Terra! Terra!” every time they want to shred another part of the Constitution. You are afraid that a live demonstration that all of Bushco’s unconstitutional (ahem, also likely highly illegal) behavior wasn’t even necessary, will reveal to the American public what cowardly charlatans you are.

You just don’t like getting caught.

[1] Note to WaPo editors. I think there should have been a semi colon after the word “pact”, the string of words right after that, beginning with “So”, is a dependant clause; if I recall Sister Priscilla’s sentence diagramming class correctly.