>This is blaming the victim, Nathan, and piling on
>irrelevant distractions. It really sounds like you're
>saying, she asked for it and we should flush her and
>forget her as an embarassment. Or denounce her for
>her actions. And you forgot to mention her apologetics
>for Stalinism.
Stewart said some stuff I don't agree with, and she may have acted badly with her client, but I just don't care about any of that right now. The point is the federal government wants to scare lawyers away from defending "terrorists" (and just about anyone else it doesn't like), and there's nothing like a 20-30 year prison term to do that. It's outrageous and frightening; it's less a legal issue than a political one, and I have the same feeling about apologizing for the government's actions as I do about going after Ward Churchill's footnotes: wrong points, wrong time.
And Nathan, I'm surprised you're not playing the partisan card. As a radical lawyer told me & Liza over dinner a couple of months ago, a Dem admin probably wouldn't have indicted Stewart. Combine this conviction with tort reform and you see a real plan to strip the justice system of any of its decent and democratic aspects and turn it into a pure instrument of repression and plutocracy.
Doug