Channeling Your Inner McCarthy On Gitmo

November 23, 2009  |  Posted by Danielle Belton

Out of all the news that came out of last week’s Senate hearing featuring Attorney General Eric Holder speaking on the upcoming trials of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other Gitmo detainees, the one story that got overlooked was a little statement by Sen. Chuck Grassley that seemed oddly familiar in a backwards, “those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it” sort of way.

Something that was one part Salem Witch Trials and two parts former Commie huntin’ Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

You see? Sen. Grassley (and later, Sen. Jon Kyl) wanted the “names.”

"There are attorneys at the Justice Department working on this issue who either represented Guantanamo detainees or worked for groups who advocated for them. ... Would you provide me and members of the committee with the names of political appointees in your department who represented detainees or who worked for organizations advocating on their behalf. It seems to be we need to know who’s involved in it and what their predilections are," Grassley said. "The very least you can give me is the list."

Huh? Where had I heard that before? Time to crack open American History 101!

"I have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five [people] that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department." – Sen. Joe McCarthy

Oh yeah. That’s why that demand stuck out like a sore thumb. Because this is one of the many shots the Justice Department has been taking the minute AG Holder announced that Mohammed and others would be coming to New York for trial. Running out of time and reasons as to why Gitmo should stay open, right wingers are looking for a new straw man to beat then set aflame. This one’s called “the entire Justice Department is tainted with terrorist sympathizers.” Taking their cues from folks like conservative squawk machine Michelle Malkin, who is pushing the anti-Holder, anti-Justice meme on her blog, Senators like Grassley and Jon Kyl are now demanding draconian lists as if the Justice Department is being secretly run by Jihadists.

That’s what Grassley is really saying in his little request. Suddenly lawyers are now to be judged by the “predilections” of their clients. Suddenly we act like we don’t know our legal system is full of attorneys who, on any given day, could be arguing either side of the law as that is the way our legal system is designed.

Sen. Kyl threw in his own backwards two cents arguing that “Leftist lawyers” are keeping Gitmo detainees from coming to trial, not the fact that Military Commission trials were heavily flawed and have only managed to convict three people since 2001.

But no. It’s easier to trash the entire justice system in an effort to keep the doomed Guantanamo Bay prison open. Who cares about facts? Who cares about rules of law? Who cares about smearing the livelihoods of Justice Department employees? He wants those names.

Holder could have completed this whole Senate throwback to McCarthyism by channeling former counsel Joseph N. Welch and asking Sen. Grassley “if he had no decency, sir?” But Holder, to his credit, went the normal route of the beleaguered government employee by saying, repeatedly, he would “consider that request," much to Grassley, and later Sen. Kyl’s chagrin.

This is just more smoke and mirrors. More obfuscation. But what makes it all the more surprising is that it involves Sen. Grassley, the normally modest, mild-mannered Iowa farmer. What is going on when a normally reasonable Senator like Grassley starts spouting talking points straight from someone like Michelle Malkin, the fringiest of the fringe? Is the right wing stain bleeding so deep that it’s starting to blight even the upper echelons of the Senate? Is this Grassley punching his ticket for the most polarized, right wing of the party? Is this his desperation Hail Mary to the Sarah Palin crowd?

Running out of time and options, all the right wing has left is character assassination and fear mongering. It’s shameful and disgusting, but not surprising. No doubt Grassley knows and remembers Sen. McCarthy’s own “list” and how well that went. To go on a defamatory witch hunt to nowhere, ruining lives and wasting tax dollars and time. Using fear as a cudgel to beat the public.

Fear works if you don’t have the truth working for you. It’s a good thing there are a lot of truth-tellers emerging on our side:

From Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog at The Atlantic:

You read something like this and you start to doubt the actual intelligence of folks. If no one reps these people, the legal system fails. Right now, there's a woman, in North Carolina, who evidently tried to sell her kid into slavery. I hope she gets competent counsel. And then I hope the prosecutor puts her in jail for the rest of her life. Somehow--much like KSM--I think she's facing worse.

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