Lawyer's Thoughts

Here's the thing about lawyers. You can't assume that you can trust that what a lawyer says is right. It may well be that what they say is legal, but ethically, morally....well, that's a whole 'nother question. You might even find yourself wondering if what they say the law says is there, at all.

As an example, I point to Kathleen Parker's article in today's Washington Post, where she expresses surprise and dismay that people are clamoring for the blood of John Yoo because he issued a legal opinion to the effect that waterboarding is not a crime. She says: "Whether one agrees with the Bybee-Yoo interpretation is a difference of opinion but nothing more. Any fair assessment has to include consideration of context and distinctions that matter, including the definition of waterboarding, which varies according to country and century."

Later in the same article, she says "Even if Bybee and Yoo were wrong, their error doesn't rise to the level of an ethical offense, much less a war crime. Under the Justice Department's own standards, an ethical issue would arise only if their opinion was so obviously wrong that no reasonable lawyer could possibly reach the same conclusion. By that standard, the only obvious wrong is the continued persecution of Jay Bybee and John Yoo. The effect sanctions might have on future lawyering, meanwhile, could be chilling."

And that's where she crosses the line. These lawyers said that harsh treatment was legal. A fair and impartial reading of the law might lead one to believe that. In the case of these fellows, though, their impartiality is suspect, because it was clear, based on their comments and observations in other locations, that they were motivated to please their masters, as willing to prostitute their calling as a doctor dealing drugs on the side, their opinions as much for sale as Alberto Gonzales. It's that transgression which is galling, which strikes to the heart of the belief that the law is impartial. That's the reason that they should be removed from positions they hold now.

If this realization now means that future lawyers will have to think twice about whether they're willing to sell their souls to the highest bidder -- well, I don't see anything wrong in that.