Posted on 07/01/2006 5:32:14 AM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest
by Mark Finkelstein
July 1, 2006
When America marches off to war, do we want lawyers on the front line? OK, I can already hear the thunderous response: 'Yes! Put those tassel-loafered shysters out there as cannon fodder!" But Jim Pinkerton, conservative columnist at Newsday and TCS, was making a more profound point this morning when he and Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News made their 'Long & Short' appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend.
The subject was the recent Supreme Court ruling that it is impermissible to subject Gitmo prisoners to military tribunals. In fairness, short-'n-liberal Ellen Ratner did stop short of suggesting they should have full US-style trials. But she predictably applauded the ruling, advocating significantly expanded due process for the detainees.
That's when long-'n-conservative Pinkerton weighed in: "It's not like we have access to evidence. What are we going to do - go to Afghanistan and find witnesses and stuff and find out if they're guilty or not?"
As Pinkerton observed earlier in the conversation:
"It was probably a mistake to ever bring them out of Aghanistan and Iraq to begin with, to take them to US soil . . . so that people like Ellen can get their hooks in them. I think we're having a test. Can we win a war with lawyers as the key force on the American side?"
Well we do have more rounds of them than anybody else, probably more than everyone else put together. Of course quality control is an issue. But the biggest issue is they're now mostly pointing the wrong way, making BDS banzia charges at our ramparts. The Marines recognize banzai charges as a useful way for rapidly thinning the opposition and a harbinger of final victory, but to NEA educated civilians they can be quite intimidating. The public needs to be re-educated, perhaps by using Kelo to replace the networks with John Wayne movies. Once we've safely exploded the maldirected lawyers we should still have enough reliable legal rounds left to overwhelm the rest of the worlds defenses.
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