Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Conor Friedersdorf has another post blasting Andrew McCarthy for his ridiculous attacks on attorneys who represent terror suspects. He quotes McCarthy making his typical allegation that anyone who defends such suspects is on the side of terrorists:
The Marxist Center for Constitutional Rights has aggressively advocated for al Qaeda for years. CCR is the backbone of the Gitmo Bar, coordinating the representation of al Qaeda detainees by the legions of volunteers from our country's major law firms. While doing so, CCR has pushed for the indictment of Bush administration officials for war crimes and bragged that its recruitment of lawyers effectively shut down interrogations, depriving the United States of vital wartime intelligence. What more does CCR need to do to prove that, as between the United States and the Islamists, CCR is with the Islamists?
Notice the completely superfluous bit of fear-mongering by labeling the CCR "Marxist," as though that would have some relevance to the validity of their legal position even if it was true (and it's not). But Friedersdorf offers an even better counter-argument:
Interesting, isn't it? For Mr. McCarthy, a belief that Bush Administration officials committed war crimes by torturing detainees is evidence that someone sides with Islamism against the United States! Of course, it is exactly those harsh interrogation tactics, also known as torture, that CCR bragged about stopping. The organization isn't opposed to lawful interrogations, nor does it seek to deprive the US of wartime intelligence. General David Petraeus, architect of the Iraq War surge, believes that Guantanamo Bay should be closed, and that the interrogation tactics favored by Mr. McCarthy and opposed by CCR negatively impact American security, increases the terrorist threat to American citizens, and hurts American efforts in the War on Terrorism.Of course, General Petraeus would never argue that Mr. McCarthy is "with the Islamists" because his favored detainee and interrogation policies hurt America's efforts in the War on Terror, but if he did make that argument, it wouldn't be any more specious than the slurs Mr. McCarthy hurls at the CCR. This isn't to say that the organization is always correct in its positions, but unless Mr. McCarthy has some additional evidence that it has sided with Islamism against the United States, his argument amounts to the odious assertion that folks who honestly believe waterboarding is torture, that the Bush Administration committed war crimes, and that torture shouldn't be used even if it elicits useful information have sided with our terrorist enemies. This is quite something when one remembers that by Mr. McCarthy's lights, the president possesses the unilateral, unchecked power to declare these Americans enemy combatants, stripping them of their Constitutional rights and imprisoning them indefinitely with no right to contest their status.
All of this is a strained and repulsive attempt by the right to paint liberal and libertarian attorneys, legal scholars and commentators as anti-American. This is especially ironic given that McCarthy and his fellow travelers are advocating unbridled executive authority to ignore the constitution. It's difficult to imagine anything more anti-American than that.
Politics
Comments
McCarthy says he is writing a book in which he will document how liberals and Islamists are allying themselves in an effort to destroy American "conservative values" -- freedom, self-reliance, capitalism, blah, blah, blah.
I guess he's hoping to emulate the (unfortunate) success of Johan Goldberg's effort to rewrite the history of Fascism as a liberal ideology. Something tells me that he's going to fail miserably.
Posted by: tacitus | March 16, 2010 12:29 PM
Conor sounds remarkably similar to another McCarthy.
Posted by: Tamarron | March 16, 2010 1:30 PM
Marxists
Posted by: AnonymousCoward | March 16, 2010 1:53 PM
tacitus, didn't David Horowitz already write that book? Ah, yes Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left was the title.
Posted by: Kristjan Wager | March 16, 2010 1:57 PM
Well that comment certianly got eaten.
Posted by: AnonymousCoward | March 16, 2010 2:05 PM
That rather depends on your definition of "American," doesn't it?
You see, I grew up with Barry Goldwater as a neighbor. Say what you will of Barry, he was pretty absolute about his belief that "American" referred above everything else to a set of principles, human liberty being at the head of the list. Maybe he didn't get the wink-and-nudge when those topics were covered in his elementary school social studies or something.
In contrast, it's also popular to define "American" as in "Red-blooded American," or "Real American," or any of the other code phrases for "Prosperous, Christian, mostly male residents of North America whose ancestors primarily came from Europe and especially northern Europe."
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | March 16, 2010 2:13 PM
Tamarron @ 2:
Don't you mean Andrew McCarthy, not Friedersdorf?
I'd also argue that what Andrew McCarthy and Liz Cheney are doing is far worse than Sen. McCarthy and therefore not analogous. Andrew McCarthy wants to destroy the careers of people not who are conspiring or opposing against our current political system like Joe M. wanted to bring down, but instead Andrew M. is looking to take down those who actively participate in the operation of our current political system as it was always intended to be operated.
This perspective needs to be better amplified.
Posted by: Michael Heath | March 16, 2010 2:22 PM
Why would Marxists be in league with Islamists? Their ideologies would seem to be radically opposed to each other, and these are groups that would tend not to make alliances like that.
Posted by: Moopheus | March 16, 2010 4:26 PM
Why not? They're really just different names for the same thing: "America-haters." Nothing else really matters; it's not like they're
whitehuman or anything.Posted by: D. C. Sessions | March 16, 2010 5:11 PM
Does John McCain still snuggle up every night with a teddy bear named after Petraeus? Because during his election year bid, McCain all but got on one knee and publicly proposed marriage to the guy.
Posted by: CHV | March 16, 2010 6:00 PM
"Why would Marxists be in league with Islamists?"
Muammar al-Gaddafi is both an Islamist and a Marxist, officially referring to his ruling ideology as "Islamic Socialism". And although theocratic, al Queida seems to have a vision that is broadly anarchist, in that they wish to abolish to nation-state and establish Pan-Islamism. This might sound like nitpicking, but the two beliefs are not as diametrically opposed as it would seem.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | March 16, 2010 7:16 PM
Yup, but I guess the far-right cannot get enough of it. This is McCarthy's thesis, coming soon in book form:
I seriously believe that far-right conservatives love to be in a perpetual state of fear. Perhaps it is the only way they can function in a world where progressive ideas have been on the upswing for 100 years or more.
Does anyone know of a book that explores this aspect of the conservative psyche? I find it quite fascinating in some ways, I just wish that it didn't have such an effect of American public and foreign policy.
Posted by: tacitus | March 16, 2010 8:16 PM
Tacitus - Try this. Hope that helps, Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | March 16, 2010 11:52 PM
Thanks, DingoJack, I will bookmark and take a look.
Posted by: tacitus | March 17, 2010 12:13 AM
Soooooo, the left is insisting upon protecting our constitutional rights to due process and individual liberty by ensuring that the government cannot make itself our master by engaging in arbitrary and capricious imprisonment, torture, etc., and yet they're the ones trying to take down our constitutional tradition?
So am I to understand that McCarthy's view of the Constitution is that we have to destroy it to save it?
Posted by: James Hanley | March 17, 2010 7:47 AM
"So am I to understand that McCarthy's view of the Constitution is that we have to destroy it to save it?"
Posted by: James Hanley | March 17, 2010 7:47 AM
Rape, pillage, rape again, then plunder AND burn...then destroy it.
...in the name of freedumb!
Posted by: Sean O'Doherty | March 17, 2010 5:04 PM