Scum

By which I mean Liz Cheney. Bill Kristol is off the hook because he's obviously incompetent.

I've been passing on this one because the stories on Cheney's attacks on the Justice Department (echoed by the sycophants who call themselves "journalists") literally turn my stomach. It just seems self-evident that a strong legal defense is a necessary part of our justice system. Cheney and Kristol are obviously of the opinion that justice is only for white folks, and rich white folks at that.

It's nice to see some push back from the right. Follow the link and 1) read the letter carefully. It's pretty strong. Then b) look at the list of signers. Some of them may surprise you.

Here's a commentary from Glenn Greenwald.

There is a real opportunity here to cause that rarest of political events: namely, having someone's credibility and standing be diminished by virtue of repugnant acts. Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol and Andy McCarthy (with whom it originated) have so transparently crossed every line with this ugly smear campaign that they are being condemned across the political spectrum. Only the hardest-core ideological dead-enders are defending them. It would therefore not only be politically plausible, but valuable, for the Congress to officially condemn these McCarthyite attacks on Justice Department lawyers. If the Democratic Congress was willing (indeed eager) to do so against the nation's leading progressive group, why wouldn't it do the same in response to a far more repugnant and potentially destructive campaign launched by a Far Right group? In 1954, the U.S. Senate condemned the original Joe McCarthy, so why not his progeny? I think it'd be worthwhile to find a sponsor for a Resolution that achieves this -- I think I'll work on that and hope others will, too -- and then urge its passage.

And read Glenwald's following paragraph for some more background to my "journalists" remark above.

What seems to elude the national media and the mouthpieces for the right (inasmuch as there is a difference) is that the Cheney/Kristol version of McCarthyism, like the original, is a direct attack on our system of government. This, as far as I'm concerned, is the major danger of the right: the left, in spite of its excesses, seems to have erred pretty constantly in the direction of greater liberty for more people. Cheney and Kristol, like their predecessors and fellow travelers, seem to be interested only in shredding the fabric of our republic for personal gain (and that means power as well as money, since the two are roughly equivalent -- ask any corporate lobbyist). In Cheney's case, I suppose this is no surprise -- she is, after all, chief apologist for a man who never found a principle he couldn't sacrifice. Bill Kristol is just an idiot who hasn't been right about anything in living memory, which seems to be the major qualification for a position as a high-profile columnist in a major daily.

Taken in tandem with Janet Porter's "prayer (below), can you see why I throw up my hands sometimes?

But you can't really do that -- you have to call them on their bullshit, and since the corporate media won't do it -- well, that leaves us.