The Authoritarian Enemy List is Expanded by Bush Appointee to Include Detainee Lawyers – How Will Bush Respond?

As I said in Failed Single Party Nations of the Past – Where Are We Going Now?, when I was summarizing what contributed to WWII, “Anxieties over social and economic issues are broadcast, exploited and focused on an enemy and its friends.” Well here’s a current example of an authoritarian trying to identify all the enemies of their preferred single-party state.

Cully Stimson, a deputy assistant secretary of defense and Bush appointee, wants corporations to pressure law firms that also represent terrorist detainees to stop this liberal activity. Stimson suggested that CEOs “are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms.”

Stephen Gillers of New York University says in an NPR story that, “He [Stimson] should be sent back to basic civics classes on the American adversary system …”

Professor Ronald Rotunda of George Mason University was reported by WSJ.com to say, “Lawyers have a long tradition of coming up to the plate and representing unpopular clients, including war criminals in World War II.” WSJ.com also included this from Professor Rotunda:

“Lawyers have a long tradition of coming up to the plate and representing unpopular clients, including war criminals in World War II,” said Ronald Rotunda, a George Mason University law professor who worked on Guantanamo issues as a legal adviser to the Bush Pentagon. Rotunda said that senior military officials told him they were pleased to see top-notch legal talent, both uniformed and civilian, representing the prisoners, so that any convictions will have credibility. “It’s not in their interest for anybody to pull punches,” he said.

Rotunda said few CEOs would likely heed Stimson’s suggestion to pressure their law firms to drop Guantanamo clients. “I don’t think this guy knows much about business because it’s simply a fact that lawyers are more liberal than many of their business clients,” he said. “But businesses pick their lawyers not because of their politics or because they’re good drinking buddies, but because they give good representation.”

According to Nina Totenberg’s NPR story, Thomas Wilner of Shearman and Sterling, who successful represented twelve Kuwaitee detainees at Guantanamo, said, “They’re really trying to make anyone who opposes them the enemy or an aider of the enemy. It’s really incredibly. They don’t understand what America is about. All we fought for all this time is that people should have a fair hearing, and now they are trying to say that lawyers that are standing up for that and standing up for the rule of law, are enemies.”

Will President Bush respond to Senator Patrick Leahy’s urging to “take appropriate action?” So far, there is only this from a spokesperson at The Department of Defense, “Mr. Cully Stimson’s comments in a recent media interview about law firms representing Guantanamo detainees do not represent the views of the Defense Department or the thinking of its leadership.”