Reuters tries to throw a fast one. Too bad the right-wing blogosphere was there to knock it out of the park.
The case of a New York attorney convicted of aiding terrorism has prompted debate among U.S. lawyers about whether the Bush administration wants to scare them away from representing terrorist defendants.
Lynne Stewart was convicted in February 2005 of helping a client smuggle messages to militant followers and is to be sentenced on Monday. She faces more than 15 years in prison.
“Her case is an example of the way in which the government is equating individuals who represent terrorists with terrorists themselves — that language of ‘if you’re not with us you’re against us’,” said Rachel Meeropol of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
“It’s a scare tactic,” she said. “It is worrisome that attorneys might become less able to represent out of fear of being prosecuted.”
But blogger Steve Gilbert over at Sweetness and Light has what Reuters (and the carrier, Yahoo) forgot to mention.
How fitting that the proud granddaughter of the executed traitors Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Rachel Meeropol of the Communist front Center for Constitutional Rights, should take up Stewart’s cause.
And how typical that the Reuters report fails to note her noble ancestry or the equally noble work of the CCR, which is representing the terrorists being held in Guantanamo.
Now why would they have done that?
Oh, THAT liberal media!