If you think that the only thing you know about Attorney General Eric Holder is Fast and Furious, you don't know half of the story. Now Holder has announced that Tony West is his new number 3 man in Justice. And who is Tony West, you ask?
http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2012/03/03/al-qaeda-defense-atty-no-3-at-obama-doj/
Yes, folks. Tony West defended none other than John Walker Lindh, the American guy who ran off to Afghanistan to join the Taliban and fight against American troops. Just what our Justice Department needs to fight against those who want to kill Americans in our own streets.
"Uh, wunnerful, ah wunnerful, ah."
*Fox News update (March 4)
West is going to oversee Gitmo!!!
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/04/attorney-questions-promotion-terrorist-defender-to-head-gitmo-policy-at-justice/
In American courts, every defendant is entitled to legal counsel. It is not, per se, a reflection on the lawyer that their client was guilty of horrible crimes.
ReplyDeleteNow if he had been the organizer of a "Taliban American Legal Defense Committee," you might have a modest point. As I recall, he negotiated a plea bargain that limited his sentence to twenty years, or maybe more, which is what the young man's parents paid the lawyer to do.
Your problem?
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteJust a little bug in the back of my head that tells me that I have seen too many prosecutors who, once they have learned their courtroom skills, have jumped into defense work. Taking defense lawyers and expecting them to be good prosecutors is a stretch. That's the problem. Holder has turned a prosecutorial agency and brought in people who are anti-prosecution. That's my problem.
Ah, now Gary is being honest!
ReplyDeleteHe didn't at ALL mean to smear the Obama administration with the insinuation that people associated with al Qaeda are being given high posts in the administration. No, no, no, perish the thought!
Gary is advocating a hard and fast bright line rule:
NOBODY WHO HAS WORKED AS A DEFENSE ATTORNEY MAY SERVE IN A PROSECUTORIAL POSITION IN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT.
I have a counter point for you. I am disturbed by the number of judges who go to the bench from working as prosecutors. It beggars belief that they could be fair and impartial, or respect the presumption of innocence.
I want a rule that no person may serve as a judge who has, within the previous ten years, worked as a prosecutor. First they have to get ten years or more of experience in civil or criminal defense law.
Then, let's modify your rule just a bit. AFTER ten years in civil law, a former defense lawyer may indeed work as a prosecutor.
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteSurely I am mistaken about West. Why he might be the next conservative on the Supreme Court if we can just get Obama out of office in November.
I suggest you go back and read the PJ Media articles on Holder's political hires at DOJ. There arwe about 110-120 as I recall. Every last one of them comes from a leftist activist background. In fact, I think the title of the series was "Every last one." PJ Media had to go to court to enforce compliance with a freedom of information request. DOJ was stonewalling it.
Gary, I could care less that PJ media characterizes every last one of them as having a "leftist background." So what? The term "leftist" is so vague as to be utterly meaningless, totally malleable in the eye of the speaker, even more so than the badly abused term "conservative." Besides, I might approve of some of what the kiddies at the pajama party call "leftist."
ReplyDeleteFurther, you have totally shifted your ground and abandoned any pretense of being able to justify your original post! You haven't ONCE called Tony West a "leftist." You just announced (portentious drumroll) that he defended John Walker Linkh! Don't even TRY to tell me that as Qaeda is a "leftist" organization.
"Beware a pan-Islamic movement masquerading as a national liberation front." --V.I. Lenin
"If Lenin said that, he was prescient." -- an anti-communist Orthodox rabbi born in Hungary who fought in the 1967 war