Let’s play “Compare & Contrast.”

[Washington Times] Iran is poised to begin producing nuclear weapons after its uranium program expansion in 2009, even though it has had problems with thousands of its centrifuges, according to a newly released CIA report.

“Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so,” the annual report to Congress states. … The CIA report is the latest official study expressing concern over Iran’s continuing nuclear activities. The International Atomic Energy Agency on March 3 issued a report warning that continuing nuclear activities in violation of U.N. resolutions raise “concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”

Remember just a few years ago, right before the election cycle of 2008 had begun, right when the world was oh so concerned that the wicked Neocons and their ‘Israeli puppeteers’ were promoting a policy of aggression against poor misunderstood Iran?

Remember the Bush-era CIA? Remember their 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran? Danger? What danger? Nukes? Ah, Iran stopped trying to go nuclear yeaaars ago! Remember that? Google does:

NIE Report: Iran Halted Nuclear Weapons Program Years Ago
December 03, 2007 11:51 AM

ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, Jonathan Karl, Luis Martinez, Kirit Radia and Jennifer Duck Report: In a stunning reversal of Bush administration conventional wisdom, a new assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies concludes Iran shelved its nuclear weapons program over four years ago.

“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” reads a declassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate key findings.

Yes, nothing to see here. Move along, move along. It’s just Dick Cheney and the Neocons lying again. We’re not naive. Iran is responding to international pressure. Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid said so, so it MUST be true, right? What say you now, Harry Reid? This new report seems to “directly challenge some of your administration’s naive rhetoric about the threat posed by Iran.”

New York Times
U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: December 3, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy. … The estimate does not say when American intelligence agencies learned that the weapons program had been halted, but a statement issued by Donald Kerr, the principal director of national intelligence, said the document was being made public “since our understanding of Iran’s capabilities has changed.”

Rather than painting Iran as a rogue, irrational nation determined to join the club of nations with the bomb, the estimate states Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.” The administration called new attention to the threat posed by Iran earlier this year when President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III” and Vice President Dick Cheney promised “serious consequences” if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.

Yet at the same time officials were airing these dire warnings about the Iranian threat, analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency were secretly concluding that Iran’s nuclear weapons work halted years ago and that international pressure on the Islamic regime in Tehran was working.

Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, portrayed the assessment as “directly challenging some of this administration’s alarming rhetoric about the threat posed by Iran.” He said he hoped the administration “appropriately adjusts its rhetoric and policy,” and called for a “a diplomatic surge necessary to effectively address the challenges posed by Iran.”

What’s changed? Nothing, except a blatantly politically-motivated intelligence agency wished to discredit the GOP prior to the 2008 election cycle. And how’d that work out for them? Well, ask the Democrats.

However, the times are a changing, because it would seem that those Democrats have also done some things to tick off the CIA, for now we have this new “No, no, Iran is dangerous after all!” report just days after the Obama Administration came down hard on Israel for their settlements and stance toward Iran.

Please pass President Obama a handkerchief so he may wipe all that egg off his face.

But which CIA do we believe? The one that says Iran is dangerous now? The one that said Iran wasn’t dangerous in 2007? Or the one that said Iran was dangerous in 2003?

And what’s the point of the NIE if they perpetually revise their assessments in 180-degree hard turns every few years? And what’s the point of an intelligence agency that’s so politically motivated?

For that matter, what’s the point of a free press that habitually takes sides? Please pass them a handkerchief as well. Or a chisel. That egg has hardened.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and as people start to realize how many anti-business provisions are in this 1,900-page monstrosity they’re going to find that this is really, really awful tasting pudding.

Just 24 hours into this mess, Investor Business Daily’s Dave Hogberg finds a quick 20 ways ObamaCare erodes your liberty and hurts business opportunity:

The sections described below are taken from HR 3590 as agreed to by the Senate and from the reconciliation bill as displayed by the Rules Committee.

1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)

2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).

3. You would like to pay less in premiums by buying insurance with lifetime or annual limits on coverage? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer such policies, even if that is what customers prefer. (Section 2711).

4. Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover preventive care or requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what the customer wants. (Section 2712).

5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employees’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714).

6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.

You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302).

7. Do you want a plan with lots of cost-sharing and low premiums? Well, the best you can do is a “Bronze plan,” which has benefits that provide benefits that are actuarially equivalent to 60% of the full actuarial value of the benefits provided under the plan. Anything lower than that, tough. (Section 1302 (d) (1) (A))

8. You are an employer in the small-group insurance market and you’d like to offer policies with deductibles higher than $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families? Tough. (Section 1302 (c) (2) (A).

9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least 50 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think you know how to better spend that money? Tough. (Section 1513).

10. You are an employer who offers health flexible spending arrangements and your employees want to deduct more than $2,500 from their salaries for it? Sorry, can’t do that. (Section 9005 (i)).

11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i))

12. If you are a physician and you want to own your own hospital, you must be an owner and have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1, 2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.) If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A))

13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a county where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot increase your capacity by more than 200% (Section 6001 (i) (3) (C)).

14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003)

15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry. If you are a pharmaceutical company what you will pay depends on the ratio of the number of brand-name drugs you sell to the total number of brand-name drugs sold in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the brand-name drugs in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2.3 billion, or $230,000,000. (Under reconciliation, it starts at $2.55 billion, jumps to $3 billion in 2012, then to $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018, before settling at $2.8 billion in 2019 (Section 1404)). Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)).

16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers. If you are a medical device maker what you will pay depends on your share of medical device sales in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the medical devices in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2 billion, or $200,000,000. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for R&D? Tough. (Section 9009 (b)).

The reconciliation package turns that into a 2.9% excise tax for medical device makers. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 1405).

17. The government will extract a fee of $6.7 billion annually from insurance companies. If you are an insurer, what you will pay depends on your share of net premiums plus 200% of your administrative costs. So, if your net premiums and administrative costs are equal to 10% of the total, you will pay 10% of $6.7 billion, or $670,000,000. In the reconciliation bill, the fee will start at $8 billion in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, $1.9 billion in 2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 (Section 1406).Think you, as an insurance executive, know how to better spend that money? Tough.(Section 9010 (b) (1) (A and B).)

18. If an insurance company board or its stockholders think the CEO is worth more than $500,000 in deferred compensation? Tough.(Section 9014).

19. You will have to pay an additional 0.5% payroll tax on any dollar you make over $250,000 if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an individual return. What? You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9015).

That amount will rise to a 3.8% tax if reconciliation passes. It will also apply to investment income, estates, and trusts. You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Like you need to ask. (Section 1402).

20. If you go for cosmetic surgery, you will pay an additional 5% tax on the cost of the procedure. Think you know how to spend that money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9017).

Before I begin, reflect on the the Tenth Amendment, and Article 1, Section 8 (which :

Amendment X: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

A1, S8, Clause 3: Congress shall be empowered “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”.

Meaning, if it wasn’t listed explicitly in Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution, it wasn’t of federal authority, but rather that of the States and the people, corresponding with the logic that the masses had far greater access to their local politicians than to a bunch of douche-bags in Washington D.C.

This argument, of course, has been debated back to the days of Thomas Jefferson versus Alexander Hamilton. In this case of ObamaCare, as in that of Hamilton’s call for a national bank, our politicians in Washington are once again usurping the catch-all “Commerce Clause” of Article I, Section 8. At least back then — as George Washington sided with Hamilton over Jefferson — one could reasonably and rationally debate that a federal bank was an implied Congressional power.

So, with that, here are some thoughts:

1. How does the “Commerce Clause” of the Constitution empower Congress to legislate the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to fine any person who does not purchase a health care plan deeded “acceptable” to the federal government (i.e., unelected federal bureaucrats determine what is an acceptable plan, not the consumer)! According to a Congressional Ways & Means report “Individuals could be fined $2,250 or 2 percent of income, whichever is greater, if you are unable to prove you have ‘minimum essential coverage.’” A note for privacy aficionados: in order to do this the IRS will have unprecedented access to your medical history. And liberals said they were worried about John Ashcroft..?

Indeed, this is warping the Constitution to a whole new level — saying the “Commerce Clause” somehow regulates the act of NOT purchasing something — and literally raping the intent of the Tenth Amendment — to limit the powers of the federal government, at least in lieu of the states.

Just 24 hours after the House’s passage of ObamaCare a dozen different states are preparing lawsuits on this basis alone.

2. Elections Matter! ObamaCare passed by just seven votes.

Woe to any Republican who thought the egregious spending from 2004 to 2008 would not have negative consequences. The public revolted. This includes conservatives, who disengaged from disappointment — don’t let any liberal imply that conservatives were silent or accepting of the George W. Bush spending. A president doesn’t drop to a 20% approval rating without losing at least half of their base (being that we are in essence a polarized 50/50, 49/51, 51/49 electorate for several national elections in a row). This was followed by the electoral death blow — not just losing the presidency, but nominating a fiscal moderate in John McCain, rather than a fiscal conservative who might have rallied some Republican victories in the House — perhaps just seven of them…

Chew on that bitter crow a while.

3. This isn’t a health care bill. It’s a dependency bill. And it’s a jobs bill — federal jobs, that is.

The jobs bill comes by nationalizing one-sixth or one-seventh (depending how you tally it) of the national econ0my. It started with the announcement of hiring an additional 16,500 IRS employees. That’s the tip of the iceberg.

The power grab is in attempting to make every citizen dependent upon the federal government for their health care. Get the middle class on the dole. Even FDR couldn’t do that.

4. Next thought. I’ll let John Stossel explain the law of unintended consequences:

The ban on “discriminating” against anyone with a pre-existing condition. This is popular, and yet one of the most damaging part of the bill. It forbids insurance companies to charge sick people more for insurance. The result: I will wait until I get sick to get insurance. The bill supposedly has a $750 fine for not buying insurance [Page 323.] But that won’t even be enforced [page 336]. Even if I did have to pay a $750 fine, so what? That’s much less than the $20,000 plus that it would cost me to buy insurance for my family. I’d be a fool to buy insurance now.

Soon only sick people will buy insurance, so premiums will skyrocket. Will our politicians see their mistake and fix it? No, they’ll bash “evil” insurance companies. The insurance market is competitive today. Obamacare will reduce competition.

5.  Twenty years from now Canadians will no longer need to cross the northern border to America in order to see specialists and get treatment they can’t get without being stuck in an 18-month waiting list back home. Americans might find the Canadian waiting list shorter than their own. (By the way, when I needed a CT, I got one the next day. Our friend’s father in the U.K. is on a months-long waiting list).

As David Gratzer explained in his recent book:

“In Alberta, Canada’s wealthiest province, 50 percent of outpatients waited more than 41 days for an MRI scan in 2008. In Saskatchewan, 10 percent of patients awaiting knee-replacement surgery waited 616 days or longer for care. In Nova Scotia, 50 percent of hip-replacement patients waited 201 days or longer for surgery. Wait times for these and other procedures don’t factor in any wait to get a referral from a family doctor – and more than 4 million Canadians can’t find a family doctor because of a national doctor shortage created by government cutbacks to medical schools in the 1990s. The situation is so dire that some townships hold lotteries, with winners gaining access to a family doc.”

And just so you know it’s not just about waits, quality, or lack thereof, becomes a factor:

“The screening gap: They [Canadians] are more than 15 percent less likely to have ever had a mammogram; 10 percent less likely to have had a Pap smear; 30 percent less likely to have had a PSA test; and more than 20 percent less likely to have ever had a colonoscopy… A broad cancer review of Europe and the United States, published in September 2007 in The Lancet Oncology, considers five-year outcomes. For the 16 types of cancer examined in that paper, American men have a five-year survival rate of 66 percent, compared with only 47 percent for European men. In Europe, only Sweden has an overall survival rate of more than 6o percent. American women have a 63 percent chance of living at least five years after a cancer diagnosis, compared with 56 percent for European women; only five European countries have an overall survival rate of more than 6o percent.”

Coming soon to a health care plan near you — lower cancer survival rates!

6. But at least the Canadian and U.K. health care costs aren’t rising like in the U.S., right? Um… no.

Also from Gratzer:

“The cost of health care in socialized-care countries like France, Canada and Ireland is growing at roughly the same rate as in the United  States. Between 2000 and 2006 [the latest data], the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] average real annual growth rate for health spending was 4.9 percent; the U.S. rate was  4.95 percent. Despite the rationing and central government control, these countries  haven’t stopped the trend of rising costs.”

7. So what’s the good news? Any?

Randy Barnett:

“This is big. With the passage of the health care bill – especially the way it was passed – the political landscape of the United States has changed, perhaps forever. And I am not referring to the inevitable growth of statism that has resulted from nationalized health care in Europe. I am referring to a clear demarcation between the parties that was not evident in the last election. If John McCain had been elected, we would have had something like this bill enacted last year in a bipartisan fashion – as was Social Security and Medicare. Such a bill would have been irreversible.

Now the political consciousness of an enormous number Americans is entirely focused on government and the political class. There is a genuinely grassroots “liberty movement” in this country that has not existed in my lifetime – perhaps not in a century or more.”

Even the New York Times concedes:

“Never in modern memory has a major piece of legislation passed without a single Republican vote. Even President Lyndon B. Johnson got just shy of half of Republicans in the House to vote for Medicare in 1965, a piece of legislation that was denounced with many of the same words used to oppose this one.”

This is on Obama and Democrats. Period.

8. Lastly (before dinner), a note on Republican stra-tegery.

I’m all for the “repeal” push, not that it will work, but to keep up awareness and anger, but along with that Republicans better offer some alternatives — from interstate insurance company competition, to tort reform, to individual deductions for health care expenses as businesses do, for starters — and more importantly communicate those ideas.

The only way to counter the inevitable “Party of No” label the mainstream media is sure to offer is to prove that this wasn’t an either-or dilemma — either you keep your existing problematic system, OR, we can nationalize one-seventh of the economy (Um, I’ll pick door #3). Republican latency, unimaginative leaders, and spending enabled the Obama Democrats to their victory yesterday. Never forget that.

Um, “Deem and Pass” that is, although the American public, of whom only 25 percent polled actually want the existing version(s) of ObamaCare (and a CNN poll at that!) might one day argue to the Democrats’ demise that it was “Demon Passed” — given the amount of obfuscation and chicanery Democrats are exhibiting to enact it without ever having voted on it.

If you’re confused by all of this Congressional lawspeak, or should I say lawfare, (or confused by the above paragraph which was admittedly written after a very long work day) you are not alone. If the Democrats really thought the American people wanted this they wouldn’t go to such lengths to warp Article I into something that even George Orwell himself would never have imagined (and I do hate it so when any politician explains in parental “Shut up and swallow it” language to us dense, nonelitist 300 million consumers how something is good for us). Thomas Paine picked up a pen (and musket) for far an intrusion on transparency and democracy.

James Taranto describes below:

Late last year, the House and Senate each passed its own version of ObamaCare. Normally, these bills would go to a “conference committee,” at which selected congressmen from both chambers would iron out the differences between them, producing a “conference report”–a single bill that would become law after both chambers approve it and the president signs it.

Scott Brown’s election made it impossible to enact ObamaCare using the usual procedure. Republican senators now number 41, enough to prevent any conference report from coming to the floor for a vote. For whatever reason–and we’ll speculate on this in a moment–President Obama was determined to ram this thing through despite the message the voters of Massachusetts sent in January. So congressional Democrats had to come up with a Plan B.

Since the House, unlike the Senate, operates for the most part by simple majority rule, the simplest solution would be for the House to pass the version of ObamaCare that the Senate already approved. It could then go to President Obama for his signature without any further Senate action required. Take that, Massachuses and Massachusettes!

But this option, while procedurally simple, was politically impossible. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters, “Nobody wants to vote for the Senate bill.” Some liberal House members view it as insufficiently socialistic since, unlike the House bill, it would not put the government directly into the business of selling insurance (the so-called public option). And most everyone is squeamish about the special deals struck to win the votes of senators like Nebraska’s Ben Nelson, Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu, Florida’s Bill Nelson and Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman. Principled moderates all, they steadfastly refused to vote for legislation they didn’t believe in unless the price was right.

Democrats thus had to find a way of getting the Senate to make some changes. They alighted on “reconciliation,” a procedure through which certain legislation involving the federal budget can go through the Senate on a simple majority vote. The House would pass the Senate bill, and both houses would pass the reconciliation bill, yielding a final product that, if all went well, would be merely miserable as opposed to horrible.

Up to this point, the procedural logic makes sense even if the political logic doesn’t. But now things take a bizarre turn. The promise of reconciliation isn’t enough to persuade some representatives to set aside their objections to the Senate bill. The result is the delightfully named “Slaughter rule,” under which the House, instead of approving the Senate bill, would approve a “rule” that would “deem” the Senate bill to have “passed.”

Republicans object to this bit of trickery–hence their effort to force a vote on holding a vote. “By supporting this resolution, Democrats can demonstrate that they will not try to hide from their constituents,” the Post quotes Minority Leader John Boehner as saying.

What will probably happen is that Democrats will block the vote on whether to hold a vote on the bill. Then–assuming Pelosi is able to scrape together a majority, which remains uncertain–they will vote on the rule to deem the Senate bill passed. They would thus bypass both the vote on whether to hold the vote and the vote itself.

But they would still have to approve the “rule” to “deem” the bill “passed,” which–assuming the courts either approve of this procedural dodge or decide the question is not justiciable–is the functional equivalent of voting for the Senate bill.

The Post reports that Democrats “suggested Republicans were trying to distract from the real discussion of what’s actually in the reform bill. . . . ‘If you don’t want to talk about substance, [you] talk about process,’ Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said.” The Washington Times quotes Rep. Steny Hoyer, Pelosi’s No. 2: “ ’So what,’ says [sic] the American people. What they’re interested in is what resulted. ‘What did you do for me and my family to make my life more secure and better and greater quality.’ And that’s what we’re trying to do.”

But if the substance of the bill is as good as they say it is–indeed, if it is anything other than a monstrosity–why do they have to come up with one procedural gimmick after another to persuade their fellow partisans to approve it?

Furthermore, especially if the American people care about substance and not process, the Slaughter rule looks delusional. Is any voter going to judge his congressman more favorably because he voted for a “rule” to “deem” the Senate bill “passed” rather than cast the substantively identical vote to pass the bill? Is any wavering member of Congress foolish enough to expect that his constituents will make this distinction?

Admittedly, one can’t rule out the possibility of congressmen behaving foolishly. Perhaps Pelosi and Hoyer are close to a majority and the Slaughter scam is targeted at a handful of waverers whom they know to be especially gullible.

But such tactics seem more likely to backfire. CNN, for example, reports that undecided Pennsylvania Democrat Jason Altmire “said he doesn’t support Slaughter’s idea because it ‘increases the opportunity for the public to say, “You know what, I’m not comfortable with this process.” ’ ”

What accounts for the relentless drive to ram ObamaCare through every procedural obstacle, regardless of the political cost? Ideological zeal, from Obama himself above all, is part of the explanation, but it isn’t sufficient. One can, after all, be ideologically committed to a goal without falling into a self-defeating obsession.

There seems to be an emotional desperation at work here. The legislative success of ObamaCare has become so tied up with Obama’s sense of himself that he feels he must push ahead–and to some extent, the leaders in Congress feel the same way. Obama is not the calm rationalist he seemed during the campaign. But while there’s a place for passion in politics, to be governed by a politician who fails to govern his passions is a frightening and creepy experience.

The following excerpts are taken from Marc Thiessen’s book Courting Disaster — and relevant to the discussion post below regarding Obama Justice Department officials who worked previously defending terrorists (point #3 is huge):

Others say that the lawyers at these firms are in fact following a  great American tradition, in which everyone gets a lawyer and their  day in court. Not so, says Andy McCarthy, the former Assistant  U.S. Attorney who put Omar Abdel-Rahman (the blind sheik)  behind bars for the first bombing of the World Trade Center in  1993.

“We need to be clear about what the American tradition is,”  McCarthy says. “The American tradition is that the 6th Amendment  guarantees the accused-that means somebody who has been  indicted or otherwise charged with a crime-a right to counsel. But  that right only exists if you are accused, which means you are someone   who the government has brought into the civilian criminal justice   system and lodged charges against. ”

The terrorists at Guantanamo, McCarthy says, do not qualify  because they have not been brought into the civilian justice system  for criminal trial. “They are being held as enemy combatants in a  war which has been authorized by Congress.”

**********
Indeed, when the lawyers began litigating these cases, there was no precedent for a right to representation for enemy combatants. McCarthy says, “We’ve had around 5 million prisoners of war in the history of the United States-that’s probably a conservative estimate. Before 2004, it would have been absurd to suggest that enemy combatants in a war had a systematic right of access to U.S. courts.”

**********

More than that, these lawyers, no doubt intentionally, are  encouraging enemy combatants to violate the laws of war. As former   Defense Department General Counsel Jim Haynes explained in a 2008 speech, “During World War II, the United States detained  more than 400,000 German and Italian prisoners of war in camps  sprinkled around the United States, and had zero successful habeas  petitions. Today, we have less than 300 unlawful combatants  detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and 246 ongoing habeas cases  to go with them…. The legal process afforded these detainees far  exceeds anything that German or Italian soldiers enjoyed at any  time during their captivity within our borders.”

The danger, according to Haynes, is that, “If you give more protections   and privileges to Al Qaeda fighters than to lawful combatants, then you will strip away any legal incentives for people to fight  according to the rules…. You encourage countries and groups to  develop corps of unlawful fighters. Ultimately, you increase the savagery of future conflicts.”

Haynes asks: Why stop at Guantanamo? “Coalition forces hold  tens of thousands of detainees in Iraq and over a thousand in Afghanistan. If the detainees in Cuba receive habeas, should those  detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan receive it as well? Instead of hundreds,   why not tens of thousands of military detainee habeas cases  in federal courts?”" These habeas corpus cases, Haynes says, are  creating “an incentive to violate the laws of war…. What’s in it for  any foe of the United States to abide by those rules if one gets better treatment upon capture by violating them?”

**********

In fact, Guantanamo detainees now enjoy rights far beyond those  afforded to prisoners of war with full Geneva protections. Nothing  in the Geneva Conventions provides POWs with the right to counsel, access to the courts to challenge their detention, or the opportunity to be released prior to the end of hostilities. Yet thanks to the habeas corpus campaign, al Qaeda terrorists who violate the laws  of war enjoy all these privileges.

There’s an interesting debate between two former Bush Administration officials regarding the Obama’s  attempt to hide the fact that many of the policy-makers in the Justice Department previously defended al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees in private practice. Both Michael Mukasey, former U.S. attorney general, and Marc Thiessen, former Bush adviser, make comparisons to the Democrats smearing of and even attempting to disbar Bush lawyers (such as John Yoo and Jay Bybee) who simply did their job and provided legal advice regarding topics like enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) and legal versus illegal combatant status.

Mukasey, writing in the WSJ, opines that just because Democrats ruined the careers of Bush lawyers Republicans should not react in kind towards Obama Justice department lawyers who previously defended terrorists (and now write policy on detainees, Guantanamo, etc.). Conversely, Thiessen, in the Washington Post, argues that Republicans are asking legitimate questions about Eric Holder’s Justice lawyers.

Thiessen writes, “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.” That’s absoluely accurate, and just the latest example in a never-ending cycle of Liberal selective outrage and media slant.

More to the point, however, having read both arguments, it appears that Mukasey is defending a point that many Republicans (Thiessen, but not all mind you) are not denying: the right of legal council for the accused, even dirtbags.

[Mukasey] A lawyer who represents a party in a contested matter has an ethical obligation to make any and all tenable legal arguments that will help that party. A lawyer in public service, particularly one dealing with sensitive matters of national security, has the obligation to authorize any step or practice the law permits in order to keep the nation and its citizens safe. And a lawyer who undertakes to represent someone whom his neighbors—perhaps rightly—revile as a threat to the public welfare is obligated to bring his talents to bear just as forcefully in favor of that client as he would if he were representing Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, the French artillery officer who in 1895 was found guilty of treason and sent to Devil’s Island for little more than being Jewish.

Nice not-so-subtle use of the race card there, eh? However, what conservatives like Thiessen or Michelle Malkin are arguing is a point of TRANSPARENCY. No doubt Thiessen and Malkin are otherwise outraged, but their first argument is that if Liberals are so very proud of the fact that lawyers who defended terrorists are now serving in very the Justice Department commanded to try these terrorist then why is Eric Holder and the Obama Administration desperately trying to gloss it over or actively obfuscate the truth?

The next argument is one of conflict of interest. Conservatives aren’t necessarily saying no representation for terrorists (a huge myth, by the way, as all Guantanamo detainees have for years both had lawyers and had judicial reviews, basically trials), but saying first that domestic criminal trials are entirely inappropriate for a variety of reasons including the loss of intelligence needed to destroy terror networks and win wars, and second, that lawyers previously charged with protecting al-Qaeda terrorists shouldn’t have the job of trying them now.

[Thiessen] 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. … Should a lawyer who advocates setting terrorists free, knowing they may go on to kill Americans, have any role in setting U.S. detention policy? My hunch is that most Americans would say no.

This is accurate, and the fact that Obama and Holder are looking to move past the criticism instead of defending the practice tells one that they believe it is accurate as well.

Here’s John Stossel: