Banana Republic Watch: Shameless Sophistry

It might be time for any US citizen of any political persuasion to get worried:

Responding to questions from Sen. Arlen Specter at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 18, Gonzales argued that the Constitution doesn’t explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights; it merely says when the so-called Great Writ can be suspended.

“There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there’s a prohibition against taking it away,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales’s remark left Specter, the committee’s ranking Republican, stammering.

“Wait a minute,” Specter interjected. “The Constitution says you can’t take it away except in case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there’s a rebellion or invasion?”

Gonzales continued, “The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended” except in cases of rebellion or invasion.

“You may be treading on your interdiction of violating common sense,” Specter said.

Book titles

I've been collecting the titles for some books by relatively well-respected, and certainly well-publicized, "pundits" from the right. The titles alone are quite revealing, and say volumes about their authors' intellectual honesty and nuance levels, not to say anything about their estimation of their target audience. Here it is:

"Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton," by Jonah Goldberg.

“The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts and the Disregard for Human Life,” by Ramesh Ponnuru.

"Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism," by Sean Hannity.

"Godless: The Church of Liberalism," by Ann Coulter.

"Women Who Make the World Worse : and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports," by Kate O'Beirne.

"State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America," by Patrick J. Buchanan.

"Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party," by David Limbaugh.

The latest entry into the list, which makes this post complete, is:

"The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11," by Dinesh D'Souza.

This last one is particularly unbelievable: The terrorists have indeed won.

Unclear on the Concept

From the NYT article:

The senior Pentagon official in charge of military detainees suspected of terrorism said in an interview this week that he was dismayed that lawyers at many of the nation’s top firms were representing prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that the firms’ corporate clients should consider ending their business ties.

As the corresponding NYT editorial points out:

It does not seem to matter to Mr. Stimson, who is a lawyer, that a great many of those detainees did not deserve imprisonment, let alone the indefinite detention to which they are subjected as “illegal enemy combatants.” And forget about the fundamental American right that everyone should have legal counsel, even the most heinous villain.

See also the Washington Post editorial.

Besides the apparent fact that the guy in charge does not seem to understand basic concepts of the rule of law in a civilized society, I also find it interesting, and apalling, that he resorts to the extortive threats that have been proven to stifle free speech in nominally free societies: If you do/say something we don't like, you won't get business from the big companies that keep your law firm/newspaper running.