So any lawyer who represents accused Terrorists and argues that the Government is violating constitutional limitations in its Terrorism policies is -- all together now -- an "al Qaeda lawyer" (even if those detainees were innocent, as most were).  Worse, these "al Qaeda lawyers" -- which includes large numbers of long-time members of the U.S. military -- are "undermining our military's" efforts to keep us safe.  That sounds like treason to me.  It's great to see the leading newspaper in the nation's capital serving as the primary amplifying force for this McCarthyite smear campaign.  Does it get any more reckless and repugnant -- or primitive and stunted --  than that?  Does The Post have any standards at all?

The answer to that last question is a resounding "yes"; Thiessen is promoting their standards.  That's exactly why Fred Hiatt hired him and Bill Kristol (and why they fired their one vocal opponent of torture and other Bush crimes, Dan Froomkin) -- because they knew exactly this would happen and wanted it to happen.  It makes it very hard to do anything but cheer when one reads things like this about the Post.   Personally, I would never root for a newspaper to go out of business, but The Washington Post does far, far more harm than good, and it does that deliberately. 

* * * * *

Note, too, how Thiessen cites Andy McCarthy as his "expert" justifying this smear campaign and only identifies him as "Andy McCarthy, the former assistant U.S. attorney who put Omar Abdel Rahman, the 'blind sheik,' behind bars" -- as though McCarthy is just some random expert Thiessen found to quote.   He doesn't bother to disclose that McCarthy is the one who originated the very smear campaign that he's being cited to defend, nor that McCarthy is Thiessen's colleague at National Review.  Anyone reading Thiessen's column who be mislead into believing that McCarthy is just some objective legal expert who is defending a McCarthyite attack that he has nothing to do with.  So in addition to disseminating a repellent smear campaign, Thiessen's Post column also violates the most basic journalistic disclosure requirements.  

Congratulations, Fred Hiatt:  every time people are certain you can't possibly bring the Post any lower, you manage to prove them wrong. 

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.

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A few brief notes on some recent items:  (1) Wolf Blitzer apologized for CNN's use of the logo "Department of Jihad?" when reporting on the Cheney/Kristol smear campaign, though the real sin was the neutral, respectful coverage he gave to the so-called "debate" over their "loyalty" (as well as other logos CNN used, such as "Al Qaeda 7" and "HAPPENING NOW:  Justice Dept. lawyer disloyal"?; (2) as I noted over the weekend, TNR's Editor-in-Chief Marty Peretz wrote one of the most nakedly bigoted statements one can imagine; thereafter, his post was changed and that offending sentence deleted, replaced with one more innocuous, with no indication whatsoever that it had been changed and no apology or even explanation from TNR -- very impressive journalistic standards; (3) many people believe that it's difficult to choose the Absolute Worst Washington Journalist, but it actually isn't; and (4) the ACLU has a very hard-hitting, full-page ad on Obama and civilian trials.

UPDATE: For those asking why I would favor such a Resolution if I oppose condemnation resolutions generally, my answer is here.

Andrew Alexander, Washington Post Ombudsman, today, on Jason Horowitz's "Rahm-Was-Right" story last week:

A greater problem, I think, was its heavy reliance on anonymous quotes. At least a dozen people were quoted by name, showing depth of reporting. But there were more than a half dozen others quoted anonymously, comprising more than a quarter of the story's length. Most supported Emanuel.

Readers properly complain about The Post's overuse of anonymous sources. They're often unavoidable, and Horowitz said he granted anonymity only after failing to persuade sources to speak on the record. But assertions offered with impunity erode credibility, especially when politically savvy readers suspect that Emanuel supporters are trying to spin The Post.

In the first two months of this year, more than 70 Post stories have relied on anonymous quotes. Based on archival research, that's well ahead of the pace for last year. Simply put, too many appear in The Post.

[David] Broder said he was troubled by the number of anonymous sources in Horowitz's story. "I think it's a general problem at this paper". . . . But Broder's column criticizing Milbank and Horowitz contained a beefy section that anonymously reported "what others in the White House think is going on" with Emanuel."I'm not pure about it," Broder readily acknowledged. "I did it myself."

The greatest blow to the credibility of establishment journalism over the last decade -- especially the NYT and the WP -- was their active, enthusiastic involvement in disseminating outright falsehoods to their readers in the run-up to the Iraq War.  So glaring and destructive were their failures that even they were forced to acknowledge at least some of what they did.  One of the principal steps they took in assuring their readers that they were determined that this would not happen again was the adoption of clear rules which stringently limited the use of anonymity.  Anonymity was a key instrument used by dishonest government officials and subservient reporters to disseminate those pre-war falsehoods.

Despite all that, they continue to violate their own guidelines over and over by indiscriminately using anonymity in the most reckless ways.  And they know they do it, because it's been repeatedly documented, even by their own ombudsmen and reporters.  Yet they blithely continue.  What other conclusion could a rational person reach other than that the publishers, editors and reporters of these newspapers neither care about nor deserve journalistic credibility?  Just think about it:  in the aftermath of the Iraq debacle, they announced:  We know we have lost credibility and here are rules we will follow to win back that credibility, only for them to then systematically and continuously breach those rules over and over, thus replicating exactly the behavior that led to the loss of credibility in the first place. 

In very limited circumstances, anonymity is valuable and justified (e.g., when someone is risking something substantial to expose concealed wrongdoing of serious public interest).  But promiscuous, unjustified anonymity -- which pervades the establishment press -- is the linchpin of most bad, credibility-destroying reporting.  It enables government officials and others to lie to the public with impunity or manipulate them with propaganda, using eager reporters as both their megaphone and shield.  It is the weapon of choice for reporters eager to serve as loyal message-carriers and royal court gossip columnists.  It preserves and bolsters the culture of secrecy that dominates Washington -- exactly the opposite of what a real journalist, by definition, would seek to accomplish (though most modern journalists seem to prefer anonymity, as it makes them appear and feel special and part of the secret halls of power, and allows them to curry favor with powerful officials as their favored loyal message-carrier).  In sum, petty or otherwise unjustified uses of anonymity are the hallmark of the power-worshiping, dishonest, unreliable reporter (which is why its most indiscriminate practitioner is Politico).   As Izzy Stone put it about the Vietnam War:  "The process of brain-washing the public starts with off-the-record briefings for newspapermen. . . ."

Literally on an almost daily basis, one reads sentences like this in all leading newspapers -- from a NYT article yesterday describing growing (and, of course, magnanimous) U.S. military involvement in Somalia:  "An American official in Washington, who said he was not authorized to speak publicly, predicted . . . . "  In other words, the "official" is dutifully delivering an authorized government message (i.e., propaganda) but has been instructed to demand anonymity when announcing it (he's "authorized to speak," but not publicly), and reporters virtually always comply.  Or, anonymity is used for petty, gossipy, manipulative purposes, such as when Rahm's friends ran to subservient reporters such as Dana Milbank and Jason Horowitz to plant accountability-free hagiographies of the royal court official whose bidding they were doing.  All of this, on a daily basis, passes the scrutiny of multiple reporters and editors, who know that they are systematically breaching their own rules of journalistic credibility but obviously aren't bothered by it in the least.  That's why -- despite the isolated good works of establishment journalists -- they collectively neither have nor deserve credibility.

UPDATE:  One related point about the spate of "Obama-should-have-followed-Rahm's-centrist-advice" articles that have appeared of late:  if you really think about it, it's quite extraordinary to watch a Chief of Staff openly undermine the President by spawning numerous stories claiming that the President is failing because he's been repeatedly rejecting his Chief of Staff's advice.  It seems to me there's one of two possible explanations for this episode:  (1) Rahm wants to protect his reputation at Obama's expense by making clear he's been opposed all along to Obama's decisions, a treacherous act that ought to infuriate Obama to the point of firing him; or (2) these stories are being disseminated with Obama's consent as a means of apologizing to official Washington for not having been centrist enough and vowing to be even more centrist in the future by listening more to Rahm (we know that what we did wrong was not listen enough to Rahm).  One can only speculate about which it is, but if I had to bet, my money would be on (2) (because of things like this and because these "Rahm-Was-Right" stories went on for weeks and Rahm is still very much around).

Of course, the reason we have to speculate about such matters is precisely because journalists suppress the identity of those who are doing this, leaving us with a bunch of unaccountable royal court gossip and intrigue, the authors of which are completely shielded by these "journalists."  That's why anonymity more often than not obfuscates rather than enlightens.

The point here is so obvious that it makes itself.  In the bolded sentence, replace the word "Arabs" with "Jews" and ask yourself:  how much time would elapse before the author of such a sentence would be vehemently scorned and shunned by all decent people, formally condemned by a litany of organizations, and have his livelihood placed in jeopardy?  Or replace the word "Arabs" in that sentence with "Jews" or "blacks" or "Latinos" or even "whites" or virtually any other identifiable demographic group and ask yourself this:  how many people would treat a magazine edited and owned by such a person as a remotely respectable or mainstream publication (notwithstanding the several decent journalists employed there)?  Yet Marty Peretz spits out the most bigoted sentiments of this type -- and he's been doing this for years, as is well known -- and very little happens, because, for multiple reasons, this specific type of hate-mongering remains basically permitted in American political discourse.  The double standard at play here is as extreme and self-evident as it is pernicious, but it doesn't matter.  And we'll all wait with bated breath for the next installment of The New Republic's righteous, accusatory attacks on the entirely fictitious manifestations of the one strain of bigotry that bothers them, because they're such credible arbiters and opponents of prejudice.

I obviously don't know whether this will in fact happen, but because these signals have come both from Eric Holder on the record and what are clearly coordinated, authorized anonymous White House "leaks," it seems quite likely.  Without assuming that this is a fait accompli, I want to make several points about what it would mean if Obama does reverse Holder's decision and puts the five 9/11 defendants before a military commission:

First, although they will try, it will be extremely difficult even for his most devoted loyalists to deny the fundamental cowardice of Barack Obama.  Think about how many times this will have happened: 

During the primary campaign, Obama unequivocally vowed to filibuster any FISA bill that contained telecom immunity, only to turn around -- once the nomination was secure -- and vote against a Democratic filibuster of such a bill, and then in favor of the underlying bill itself; in other words, he blatantly violated his own unequivocal vow in order to avoid being called Soft on Terror (but did so assuring his believing supporters that, once in office, he'd fix the surveilllance excesses he helped enact; don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen).  Then, last May, Obama announced that he would comply with two court decisions by releasing photographs of detainee abuses in the Pentagon's custody, only to turn around two weeks later and completely reverse himself after Liz Cheney and friends accused him of Endangering the Troops and Helping Terrorists.  If, in the face of "GOP demands" that Mohamed be denied a civilian trial, he again reverses himself -- this time on the highest-profile civil liberties decision of his administration -- he will unmistakably reveal himself, even to his most enamored admirers, as someone so utterly devoid not only of principle but also of resolve:  you just blow on him a little and he falls down and shatters into little pieces. 

Even just as a political matter, is there any better way to ensure that Americans will view him as weak than by abandoning one key decision after the next as a result of the slightest pressure?  What kind of person could possibly admire a "leader" who does this?

Second, Obama supporters spent months vigorously defending the decision to try KSM in a civilian court on the ground that Obama was upholding the Constitution and defending the rule of law.  What are they going to say if he reverses himself and uses military commissions instead:  that he's shredding the Constitution and trampling on the rule of law?  If they have any intellectual integrity at all, that's what they will have to say.   The reality is that this praise for Obama never made any sense -- how can one claim that civilian trials are compelled by "our values" and "the rule of law" and praise Obama for following those principles when he's simultaneously denying civilian trials to most detainees? -- but since that's the argument they made to defend him, they should follow that through to its logical conclusion if he reverses Holder's decision.  Here's the only way an intellectually honest person could react to such a decision, from the Post article:

Marine Col. Jeffrey Colwell, acting chief defense counsel at the Defense Department's Office of Military Commissions, said it would be a "sad day for the rule of law" if Obama decides not to proceed with a federal trial. "I thought the decision where to put people on trial -- whether federal court or military commissions -- was based on what was right, not what is politically advantageous," Colwell said.

I thought so, too.  Of course, many hardened Obama supporters amazingly found ways to justify both his original position and his 180-degree reversals on FISA and detainee photos (pragmatism!!), but how can anyone with a working brain or a mirror possibly venerate civilian trials as compelled by the Constitution and the Rule of Law, and then refrain from harshly criticizing Obama for denying those very same civilian trials?

Third, remember all the loud, righteous Democratic complaints about how Alberto Gonzales had "politicized" the DOJ and allowed the White House to intervene for political reasons in prosecutorial decisions?  That's exactly what this would be.  They're not even trying to hide the fact that it is the White House that will intervene and reverse the prosecution decision of the Attorney General and his career prosecutors for purely political reasons.  There are no words in the English language sufficient to describe the intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy of those who objected to Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove's "politicization" of the DOJ yet who would refuse to voice the same complaints here.  And that's to say nothing of the glaring hypocrisy of Democrats' having spent years railing against military commissions generally, only now to turn around and embrace them.

Finally, the political excuse being offered -- that this will help secure votes to fund the closing of Guantanamo -- makes absolutely no sense for several reasons (aside from the fact that it borders on corruption to override the DOJ's decisions about prosecutions based on political horse-trading).  As The Post article makes clear, the objections to trying these defendants in a civilian court comes "mainly from Republicans," who only have 41 seats in the Senate.  If Republicans want to de-fund the closing of Guantanamo, it will be the GOP -- not the Obama White House -- which will need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in order to enact that ban (just as Democrats needed 60 votes when they tried to impose limits on the funding of the Iraq War).  Funding decisions themselves are not subject to filibuster and require only 50 votes to pass. 

The prior decision of the Senate not to fund the closing of that camp was due to the fact that Obama had not yet revealed his plan for closing it, and Senators -- understandably -- did not want to fund something that had not yet even been disclosed.  Now that Obama has announced his plan for its closing, very few Democrats have expressed opposition to it or to civilian courts.  The claim that reversing Holder's decision will help close Guantanamo is pure fiction.  And even if it were true, it raises the question nobody can answer:  what is the point of closing Guantanamo if the core Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld system -- military commissions for some and indefinite detention for the rest -- is retained in full by Obama?

For years, Democrats have failed to grasp the fact that they are perceived as "weak" not because of any specific policies, but because they are perceived -- rightly -- to believe in nothing (or at least nothing that they claim to believe).  It is hard to imagine any act that could more strongly bolster that perception than to watch Barack Obama -- yet again -- scamper away from his own claimed principles all because the GOP is saying some mean things about him.

UPDATE:   A few related points:  first, here is Obama -- a mere two months ago -- waxing all righteous and eloquent in defending the sanctity of civilian trials for the 9/11 defendants.  Second, Lindsey Graham  -- only three months ago -- introduced an amendment to ban the funding of civilian trials for accused Terrorists, and it failed 54-45; since then, virtually no Senators have changed their position (except that Maria Cantwell, who voted FOR the Graham amendment, has since signaled she now supports civilian trials).  Whatever Obama's motives for reversing this decision (if he does), it's not because he needs to do so to secure the Senate's approval.  This is the White House's doing.   Finally, Harper's Scott Horton explains the reasons it's so inappropriate to allow the White House to interfere in DOJ prosecution decisions for political reasons.

That those in question would have their patriotism, loyalty and values attacked by reputable public figures such as Elizabeth Cheney and journalists such as Kristol is as depressing a public episode as I have witnessed in many years. What has become of our civic life in America? The only word that can do justice to the personal attacks on these fine lawyers -- and on the integrity of our legal system -- is shameful. Shameful.

As I noted the other day, that's the disgusting logic of the Cheney/Kristol campaign:  it necessarily suggests that every military and civilian lawyer who ever advocated for the Constitutional or other rights of accused Terrorists -- and every judge who ever issued a favorable ruling (including a majority of current Supreme Court Justices) -- is an America-hating subversive in league with Al Qaeda.  And it wouldn't matter in the slightest if a lawyer represented a detainee because they were asked to do so by military lawyers or sought out the work on their own:  when one defends anyone against unconstitutional acts by the Government or otherwise provides a zealous legal defense, one is, by definition, defending what are supposed to be the country's core political values.  Notably, even The Post's Editorial Page today condemns the Cheney/Kristol ad as a "smear" campaign and notes:  

Yet patently the video is far more than a call for transparency. It is an effort to smear the Obama administration and the reputations of Justice Department lawyers who, before joining the administration, acted in the best traditions of this country by volunteering to take on the cases of suspected terrorists. . . .

It took courage for attorneys to stand up in the midst of understandable societal rage to protect the rights of those accused of terrorism. Advocates knew that ignorance and fear would too often cloud reason. They knew that this hysteria made their work on these cases all the more important.  The video from Keep America Safe proves they were right.

So according to the Post Editors, this "Department of Jihad" ad is a "smear" campaign based in "hysteria, ignorance and fear" that is designed to "cloud reason."  Yet those very same Post Editors continue to employ as a Columnist one of the primary parties responsible for this "smear" campaign.  That's a strange thing to do.  Once a newspaper's editors decide that someone is responsible for what they themselves denounce as a repugnant "smear" that traffics in fear, hysteria and ignorance and is designed to "cloud reason," one would think they'd no longer want to provide a forum to the person responsible.  Why would a newspaper want to amplify and elevate a person who they know smears others using fear, hysteria and ignorance?  

It's hardly news that Bill Kristol is a rank propagandist responsible for some of the most destructive falsehoods in our political culture, but now that the Post Editors explicitly recognize this, doesn't it speak volumes about them if they continue (as they will) to employ such a person as a regular Columnist?  And which will be the first television news organization to present Kristol's wretched McCarthyite comrade, Liz Cheney, as a Sunday morning panelist to opine as some sort of expert on various political matters of the day?  Do news organizations recognize any responsibility at all with regard to those who try to spawn a disgusting witch hunt like this?

UPDATE:  Wolf Blitzer tonight apologized for the on-screen graphics used by CNN last night in its story on the "Al Qaeda 7" campaign.  Credit where it's due, I suppose, though the use of those chyrons was only a part of the journalistic heinousness in how CNN and Blitzer covered that story.