You've gone too far, Liz

Shades of Joseph McCarthy !!!

Liz Cheney heads a conservative group, Keep America Safe, that is running a tv ad that calls into question the loyalty of lawyers who once defended Guantanimo detainees and who are now employed by the Department of Justice.

Of course, it's pure politics disguised as patriotism. Liz snidely implies that a lawyer who has defended detainees (never mind that some of them may have actually been innocent) is working against our country -- and (hint, hint) if the Obama administration then hires them, the Obama administration must also be disloyal.

Oh, she doesn't come right out and say that. But what else could this ad be getting at?

Well, Liz has gone too far, even for former Bush administration officials. As reported by HuffingtonPost:

In a statement signed by nine former Bush officials and 10 other lawyers, critics condemned the ads as a "shameful series of attacks...both unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications."

The letter defends the current selection of Department of Justice attorneys saying that "the American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams's representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston massacre ...To suggest the Justice Department should not employ talented lawyers who have advocated on behalf of detainees maligns the patriotism of people who have taken honorable positions on contested questions and demands a uniformity of background and view in government service from which no administration would benefit."

And that, my friends, is cutting pretty close to the bone. Better cool your guns, Little Liz.

Ralph