Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Indefensible should be fired!

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Indefensible
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, January 23, 2007; Page A17

"On the cold moonlit evening of March 5, 1770," writes David McCullough in his magisterial "John Adams," "the streets of Boston were covered by nearly a foot of snow." A crowd set upon a lone British sentry at Boston's Province House, taunting him. Quickly, reinforcements arrived, and so did a larger crowd. Soon the crowd hurled snowballs, chunks of ice, oyster shells and stones. The soldiers, now nine, opened fire, killing five Bostonians -- "bloody butchery," Samuel Adams called it. Only one lawyer would defend the British soldiers. He was a different Adams -- John Adams, a good man on the path to being great.

I resurrect this tale about Adams because it is sorely needed. Just this month, an official in the Bush administration, a deputy assistant secretary of defense named Charles D. Stimson, suggested that lawyers who defend terrorism suspects being held at Guantanamo not only should not do so but that their firms ought to be blackballed as a result....

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Naturally enough, Stimson's repudiation of everything John Adams stood for produced some protest, condemnation and outrage. Following the well-established Washington rule, Stimson apologized, doing so in a letter to The Post....I, for one, do not accept Stimson's apology. I think it is insincerely offered and beside the point. What matters most is that he retains his job, which means he retains the confidence of his superiors in the government. How anyone can have confidence in such a man is beyond me. There are only two explanations, one inexcusable, the other chilling. The first is that his bosses don't care. The second is that they agree with him.

I would guess that Stimson strongly felt it was No. 2 -- agreement. From the get-go, the Bush administration has taken the position that anyone it detained on terrorism charges was guilty. Throw away the key. No need for lawyers. No need for judges. No need for anything except, of course, the word of the authorities. In recent months, a more assertive Congress and the courts have unaccountably challenged this view, and the Bush administration has beaten a tactical retreat on unchecked eavesdropping and the legality of trying alleged terrorists before military commissions. Still, we all know where its heart is on these matters. Justice is what the administration says it is.

By now, any other administration would have fired Stimson, apology or not. His words show that he is unfit for government service, not to mention membership in the bar. Fortunately for him, if and when someone does drop the ax, some misguided lawyer, infused with the spirit of John Adams, will defend him. I hope Stimson will forgive him.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/22/AR2007012201087.html?nav=most_emailed