National Review, Torture, McCain and Che
Over on the National Review, Mark Levin rushes to John McCain’s defense against George Will whose recent column goes after McCain for his criticism of the recent decision of the Supreme Court to allow habeas corpus rights for terror suspects being held in Guantanamo. (McCain’s response showed his blatant disregard for civil liberties and the Constitution.)
Levin’s post certainly evokes the old criticism of the National Review as being so concerned with being anti-communist, that it fails to oppose communism. This time Levin invokes opposition to Che as a reason to defend Bush’s torture policy:
the attorneys for the enemy, led by the Center for Constitutional Rights, have made clear their motives. It is their purpose to use litigation to weaken our nation’s resolve. CCR’s president, Michael Ratner, is a William Kunstler protégé and worshipper of Che Guevara. There is plenty of public information about him and his group and their activities. Will should have encumbered his views with more facts regarding the bigger picture. This war is being fought not only overseas, but now in our courtrooms; we are winning in the former and losing in the latter.
How ironic that Levin cites Ratner’s tie to Che as a reason to oppose the Center for Constitutional Rights (which took the case to the Supreme Court) given that Che was a thug who ran Castro’s secret prisons and was the communist regime’s chief torturer.
If Levin is so appalled at Che (and he should be), then how about he opposes the Bush Administration’s remarkable imitation of Che? After all, Guantanamo (which like Che’s prisons are located on the island of Cuba) is essentially a secret prison where the Bush Administration ordered torture.
Instead Levin equates a group that is advancing the rights of habeas corpus (a right that no Cuban living under communism enjoys), with the evils of communism and even implies that the lawyers are at war against America. What chutzpah!