Posted by Dave on 02/26/08 at 09:52:18 am
Categories: Crime and Justice, Campaign 2008

There is currently a ludicrous attack coming at Hillary Clinton about her legal defense work of a defendant accused of rape:

But there is a little-known episode Clinton doesn't mention in her standard campaign speech in which those two principles collided. In 1975, a 27-year-old Hillary Rodham, acting as a court-appointed attorney, attacked the credibility of a 12-year-old girl in mounting an aggressive defense for an indigent client accused of rape in Arkansas - using her child development background to help the defendant.

Hillary did exactly what she should have done - work her hardest and do her best to do what she could to help her client.

As many of my readers know, I have a dream of doing this exact work - working as a public defender defending some of the worst kinds of accused criminals. If I ever end up doing that, I will be forced to defend some bad people. And I will do everything that I can to give those people the best possible defense.

Hillary Clinton is not a bad or immoral person (as some have suggested) because aggressively defended her client, just as I will not be a bad or immoral person if I do the same. There are many, many amazing defense attorneys in this country, many of which are public defenders, who do amazing and difficult work for their clients. These clients are often rejected by society. These clients are often people who many believe do not deserve a fair trial or a good lawyer. And these lawyers defending them are doing exactly what they are supposed to do.

I respect Hillary Clinton even more because she was able and willing to aggressively defend her client even in a difficult situation.

As many of you know, I am not supporting Hillary Clinton, for a myriad of reasons. But I will say that I have been more and more impressed with her as this campaign has gone on, both because of her enormous knowledge of almost everything and because she is simply good at what she does.

Clinton has been attacked in many ways this campaign season, and many of those attacks have been way off base. She has been attacked for being "shrill," for being "emotional," for "feeling down," and a whole helluva' lot of other sexist things. She has been attacked for being married to a man who cheated on her. And show she is being attacked for her doing her job well many many years ago.

Don't get me wrong. There are very relevant issues that Clinton can and should be "attacked" on. But this sure isn't one of them, and nor are any of the sexist attacks that she has received.

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