An Extremist Lawyer's "Legendary Compassion"
 

     Friday's Times throws a protective shield around left-wing figures Ward Churchill and Lynne Stewart.

     A Metro section profile by Sabrina Tavernise of radical lawyer Stewart (convicted Thursday of aiding Islamic terrorism by passing along messages from her terrorist client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman) puts the best spin on the guilty verdict in a whitewash of a profile, "Stewart's Case Log: Revolutionaries, Hit Men, the Poor and the Obscure."

     Tavernise starts: "Lynne F. Stewart, the activist defense lawyer convicted yesterday of aiding terrorism, has spent her life passionately defending some very unpopular clients…. Long before Ms. Stewart took up the defense of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric on whose account she was convicted yesterday, she was taking cases that no one else wanted. Among her more prominent clients were a Mafia hit man, leftist revolutionaries and a man accused of trying to kill police officers. But she also defended the poor and obscure. Perhaps her most celebrated defense was that of Larry Davis, a man accused of wounding six New York City police officers in a 1986 shootout. Ms. Stewart argued that Mr. Davis, who is black, was justified in using violence because the police were using violence on blacks at the time. He was acquitted of attempted murder."

     There's more about Miss Wonderful: "Ms. Stewart's compassion is legendary, her friends said. [Elsie] Chandler recalled representing a client who had once been counseled by Ms. Stewart. The client had again been charged with a violent crime. Ms. Chandler told Ms. Stewart about it. 'I could see on her face that she remembered him and that she was so unhappy that he had been rearrested,' Ms. Chandler said. 'There are so few lawyers who have that basic humanity and kindness.'"

     Then there's Stewart the 60s idealist and victim of injustice: "Some say that Ms. Stewart never gave up the ideals of the 1960's. In the 1995 interview, Ms. Stewart said the struggle by Egyptians against their authoritarian government was 'the only hope for change there, the one that gathers the imagination of the people, that motivates them.' After Sept. 11, 2001, the Islamic cause became unpopular in the United States. Ms. Stewart's supporters say that the case against her stuck only because the political environment in the country had changed. Ms. Stewart took the verdict with characteristic passion. On her way out of court, after registering with the probation office, she said she planned to listen to music and 're-center, reorganize and prepare for what comes next.'"

    Tavernise's flattery whitewashes Stewart's extremism. The Washington Post quoted her last June: "There is death in history, and it's not all rosebuds and memorial services. Mao, Fidel, Ho Chi Minh understood this."
There's also no mention of Stewart's past statements advocating left-wing violence. As New York Post columnist John Podhoretz remembers: "'I don't believe in anarchistic violence but in directed violence,' she once said. 'That would be violence directed at the institutions which perpetuate capitalism, racism and sexism, and at the people who are the appointed guardians of those institutions, and accompanied by popular support.'"

     William Glaberson's accompanying article on the Stewart verdict, "Lawyers Take Uneasy Look At the Future," features this cut-out line: "Defenders of the unpopular are feeling a little less popular." (As if Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, convicted in 1995 of conspiracy to attack New York landmarks, was merely an "unpopular" defender.)

     Glaberson's story begins with laments from (unlabeled) left-wing lawyers: "Lawyers who take politically unpopular cases said yesterday that the conviction of Lynne F. Stewart was a warning that they could be prosecuted, too, though some insisted that they would not bow to what they called the intimidating message of the verdict. 'I don't think that there's a political lawyer in this country who doesn't believe that the government has a plan to target the lawyers who do what we do and to silence us,' said Stanley L. Cohen, one of the country's best-known defenders of militants, terror suspects and other unpopular clients."

     After relaying some damning evidence from the trial ("The prosecution also showed videotapes of Ms. Stewart saying 'good for them' when her client was told in her presence that a militant group in the Philippines had taken hostages") and citing lawyers who indeed thought Stewart had crossed the line, Glaberson relays more left-wing hand-wringing: "Still, there was a sense among some lawyers who have represented politically unpopular clients that the conviction might thin their ranks considerably, as lawyers worry about the consequences of opposing a government that is under intense pressure to win conviction in terrorism-related cases. Ronald L. Kuby, a defense lawyer and radio talk show host, said yesterday that Ms. Stewart's conviction would add to the pressures on defense lawyers in such cases. Mr. Kuby briefly represented the same client, Mr. Abdel Rahman."

To read the rest of Tavernise, click here:

For Glaberson's article in full, click here:

Criticism of Ward Churchill = Cutting off Open Debate?
 

     After lauding radical lawyer Lynne Stewart in its Metro section, the Times' Friday news section ponders the possibility that strong criticism of Ward ("Little Eichmanns") Churchill signals a squelching of open debate in America.

     Kirk Johnson profiles the infamous academic activist in "Incendiary in Academia May Now Find Himself Burned." Johnson writes: "Prof. Ward L. Churchill has made a career at the University of Colorado out of pushing people's buttons, colleagues and students say, clearly relishing his stance as radical provocateur and in-your-face critic….The storm of controversy that has blown up around Professor Churchill over his essay about the Sept. 11 attacks, with its reference to the Nazi Adolf Eichmann -- the 'technocrats' at the World Trade Center were 'little Eichmanns,' Professor Churchill said -- has turned the professor into a talking point and a political punch line."

     But Johnson manages to put those who've made an issue of Churchill's disgusting remarks on the defensive. "On conservative talk radio, on campuses across the country, and especially here in Boulder, debate about Professor Churchill means debate about freedom of speech, the solemnity of Sept. 11 and the supposed liberal bias of academia. Many people here say that the professor -- with his scholarly record under investigation by the university and with Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican, calling for his dismissal -- has become a symbol of academic expression under fire. Others worry that subjects like Sept. 11 have become 'sacred,' and cordoned off from unpopular analysis….Many students interviewed on campus in recent days said they feared that the lines being drawn around Professor Churchill were also creating boundaries about what could be freely and safely talked about in the United States."

     While noting Churchill's history of left-wing activism, Johnson doesn't get into other unflattering aspects of this character's character. Columnist Jonah Goldberg discovered "Churchill recently gave an interview in which he said he wanted the 'U.S. off the planet. Out of existence altogether.' He thinks 'more 9/11s' are necessary….Before the current kerfuffle, he'd attained whatever prominence he had by pretending he was an American Indian radical. He likes to pose with assault rifles. The Rocky Mountain News did a genealogical search of Churchill's past and found that he's basically a vanilla white guy playing Indian and enriching himself in the process. The American Indian Movement called Churchill a fraud years ago."

For the full story by Johnson, click here: