First, my condolences to Keith Olbermann after the loss of his father over the weekend. Your father was a great man in both life and death, and he will be missed. Also, condolences to the family of actor Peter Graves, who died on Sunday. Airplane! is still one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.
My main topic has to do with the ridiculous arguments brought forth by Liz Cheney and her hate group known as Keep America Safe. In her rush to attack President Obama on his handling of terrorist trials, Ms. Cheney conveniently forgets some of the basic principles of American life.
Calling a group of American citizens the "Al Qaeda Seven", is, first off, nothing more than a cheap and tawdry political smear, containing nothing of substance and resorting to attacks on these people's patriotism that is completely unjustified. But we already know that.
What strikes me as ridiculous, however, is the idea that lawyers who defend people that the rest of society does not like somehow share the same values as those they choose to defend. Ms. Cheney and her ilk think they are simply trying to bring citizens to their side and leave the side of the President. In actuality, their actions are causing us to lose a traditional American right we take for granted.
We believe that all people deserve the right to a fair and speedy trial, as established in the 6th Amendment. We believe that all people should have the right to a trial by jury, as established by the 7th Amendment. The Founding Fathers knew of the dangers of public passion, and they created these amendments to guarantee that innocent people would be protected from the possibility of mob rule. This idea is not a bleeding-heart liberal idea put into American law by those crazy "progressives". This is an value embedded in our society since 1791.
Of course, no lawyer wants to defend a murderer, a thief, or a terrorist. We have been conditioned to believe that these people are evil, which they probably are. But they still must be entitled to a fair trial and public counsel, whether the public wants it or not.
I don't know if Ms. Cheney has ever met one, but we have lawyers today who are willing to defend the criminal class. They're called "public defenders". They're appointed by the government to defend those who cannot afford an attorney. Although they are supported by public funding, they are ethically bound to be independent and do not take direction from the government on the handling of a case. While they may not be as well paid as high-powered private attorneys, they provide a valuable service towards the promotion of justice.
Ask any public defender about their job, and they will probably tell you they are proud to do their job. The same applies to the federal lawyers Ms. Cheney calls the "Al Qaeda seven". They do the jobs that no one else wants to do, for the sake of following the rules established in our Constitution.
Right-wingers like Ms. Cheney claim to love the Constitution and are trying to protect it from destruction by liberals. The truth is that they only care about the Constitution when it applies to them. Ignoring a basic right we Americans take for granted and using it for the purpose of scoring political points is shameful. Ms. Cheney, to take a phrase from Bill O'Reilly, should really learn to "wise up".