Ladies and gentleman, I present you the latest WaPo column by Marc Thiessen, who apparently has decided that his goal in life is to make Liz Cheney look like Mother Theresa:

Would most Americans want to know if the Justice Department had hired a bunch of mob lawyers and put them in charge of mob cases? Or a group of drug cartel lawyers and put them in charge of drug cases? Would they want their elected representatives to find out who these lawyers were, which mob bosses and drug lords they had worked for, and what roles they were now playing at the Justice Department? Of course they would — and rightly so.

Yet Attorney General Eric Holder hired former al-Qaeda lawyers to serve in the Justice Department and resisted providing Congress this basic information.

Get the insinuation?  Mob lawyers, as everyone knows, are lawyers hired by the mob to defend their interests.  Drug cartel lawyers, as everyone knows, are lawyers hired by drug cartels to defend their interests.  So “al Qaeda lawyers” must be. . . .

I know!  Paid by al Qaeda!  Those bastards!  Send them to Guantanamo!

Only one small problem here, Marc.  The attorneys in question worked pro bono, frequently at the request of [Bush] Administration officials.  And some of the people in question, as I’ve noted elsewhere, were brought in by the Bush Administration in the exact same way that you now object to under the Obama Administration.

One other thing:  those lawyers you despise for allegedly selling out their country?  They took their cases to the Supreme Court.  And in a couple of instances, they won.  If we were to use your twisted logic, we should now start calling members of the Supreme Court “al Qaeda justices.”  And what about the JAG attorneys who defended terror suspects in front of the military tribunals?  Are they now al Qaeda judge advocates?

Here’s another Thiessen counter-factual:

Where was the moral outrage when fine lawyers like John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Jim Haynes, Steve Bradbury and others came under vicious personal attack? Their critics did not demand simple transparency; they demanded heads. . . .The standard today seems to be that you can say or do anything when it comes to the Bush lawyers who defended America against the terrorists. But if you publish an Internet ad or ask legitimate questions about Obama administration lawyers who defended America’s terrorist enemies, you are engaged in a McCarthyite witch hunt.

Sigh.

First of all, the critics of Yoo et. al. demanded both transparency and heads.  Second, this isn’t a tit for tat situation.  You are alleging that the lawyers in question did something you didn’t like — but was perfectly legal — when they were in private practice.  Those criticizing (and yes, demanding the resignation/censure of) Yoo and friends were saying that they engaged in illegal behavior.  Those are not the same thing — and you know better.  This is the worst kind of straw man argument — one that uses a straw man to mount an ad hominem attack.

Would someone please again tell me why the Washington Post hired this guy?

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