Gingrich Trashes the Rule of Law

Gingrich Trashes the Rule of Law

by Chris Cassidy

Remember when the Justice Department was filled with partisan hacks who followed illegal and immoral policy directives, irrespective of the law? Oh, the good ol' days, says Newt Gingrich.

As part of a larger attack on the Obama administration during this year's David Horowitz Restoration Weekend, the former House Speaker bewailed Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try terrorism suspects in federal court: "Now you have an Attorney General whose basic position is, let's have a public trial under American criminal defense models, with their lawyers having access, or demanding access, or suggesting access -- frankly, someone should introduce a resolution of impeachment."

Wow. In Gingrich-landia, attorneys general should, nay, must deny criminal defendants access to the the rights of, well, criminal defendants. One would imagine that the Founders, who enshrined these guarantees in the Bill of Rights, would meet such disrespect with disappointment, if not disdain.

Lest we forget, the Justice Department -- of which the Attorney General is the highest ranking member -- is supposed to be an executor of American law, not a workshop for political hatchet men. This was most recently and infamously forgotten by President George W. Bush, whose Justice Department used political litmus tests in hiring career staff. Under Bush and Cheney, the Justice Department also subjugated the rule of law to wrongheaded, counterproductive, and illegal torture policies, abandoning America's principles at the expense of our international reputation.

Andrew Sullivan, who this week unearthed Gingrich's address, offers this ominous warning: "We tend to assume that the worst of the Cheney abuses is over. Not if an unreconstructed GOP gets back to power."

See the video here.