Graham blasts Cheney on 'al Qaeda 7' ad.
I've spoken before about the amount of Republicans who are lining up to condemn Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol's odious advert, so I won't harp on about it again. I will just note that Lindsey Graham has now joined the throng of Republicans speaking out against that dreadful TV ad:
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Senate Armed Services and Judiciary Committees, told The Cable Tuesday that the Cheney-Kristol ad was inappropriate and unfairly demonized DOJ lawyers for doing a noble public service by defending unpopular suspects.Carl Levin has agreed with Graham and also brought up the John Adams analogy.
"I've been a military lawyer for almost 30 years, I represented people as a defense attorney in the military that were charged with some pretty horrific acts, and I gave them my all," said Graham.
"This system of justice that we're so proud of in America requires the unpopular to have an advocate and every time a defense lawyer fights to make the government do their job, that defense lawyer has made us all safer."
Graham pointed out that when Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito were facing Senate confirmation, some attempted to use their client lists against them and it was wrong then too.
"I'm with Kenneth Starr on this one," Graham added, referring to a letter signed by several GOP lawyers, many of whom defended Bush-era detainee policies, condemning the "al Qaeda 7" ad.
"To suggest that the Justice Department should not employ talented lawyers who have advocated on behalf of detainees maligns the patriotism of people who have taken honorable positions on contested questions and demands a uniformity of background and view in government service from which no administration would benefit," read the letter, which was organized by the Brookings Institution's Benjamin Wittes and signed by David Rivkin, Lee Casey, and Philip Zelikow, among others.
"They probably would have called President John Adams a terrorist too, because he defended the British soldiers who killed Americans at Bunker Hill," said Levin. "I don't think folks like that will stop at anything to attack the president and Democrats. I don't know if there are any limits to their venom.... I haven't seen any."
Kristol, of course, is refusing to back down and it's hysterical to read his continuing justifications for the piece of McCarthyism he indulged in, even as Cheney now claims that this disgusting advert "doesn't question anybody's loyalty".
It's so typical that Cheney will claim to have been misunderstood while Kristol still insists that he was right. He's been wrong more often than any other commentator I have ever come across, but it's never stopped him in the past and it won't stop him now. No matter how many of his fellow Republicans step up to the plate to condemn him.
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