CRASH: Over-wrought v. Over-wrought?

William Kristol at TWS the Blog:

If you want to see some really high-class smoke being blown, it's worth taking a look at the recent statement signed by a bunch of Republican lawyers defending liberal lawyers now working at the Justice Department who'd previously represented or advocated for terrorist detainees. Nameless straw men (including me) and women (Liz Cheney) are subject to name-calling--"shameful," "unjust," and "destructive" appear in the first paragraph alone. In all three paragraphs of the lawyers' letter, highfaluting generalities are generally and highfalutingly invoked.

OK, some on the Right are calling Liz Cheney's group's "outing" of Holder's appointees...in the terms used ("The al-Qaeda Seven") "over-wrought". Mebbe. But "Keep America Safe" was doing some heavy-lifting, trying to pry open the lead shield covering the Holder Justice Department. Sometimes a little polemical over-kill is applied in such an effort. I wouldn't have used the "al-Qaeda Seven" sobriquet, but it wasn't wrong. Ill-considered, perhaps. Perhaps not.

But what's the harm in naming Justice Department lawyers involved in decision-making directly involving national security? Where is there harm in questioning their philosophy? How is it wrong to question their fitness for the offices they hold?

That does not...ever...endanger our system of justice. Those who imply that it does are WAY past over-wrought.