With each passing day, the apologists for the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture resemble more and more characters from an episode of Seinfeld. After narrowly escaping a recommendation of disbarment last month, its legal architect John Yoo offered what might be deemed the George Costanza defense: it's not a war crime if you believe it. Now, conservatives on both sides of the Liz Cheney "Al Qaeda 7" smear of the Obama Justice Department have entered Seinfeld's Bizarro World where the polar opposite of truth reigns. For the likes of David Brooks, Marc Thiessen and Amy Holmes, the Obama DOJ lawyers who defended the U.S. Constitution are no different than the Bush torture team that undermined it.
Former Bush speechwriter, current waterboarding enthusiast and ardent defender of Cheney's "Department of Jihad" smear Marc Thiessen offered the purest analogy between Eric Holder's attorneys who once defended suspected terrorists and the Bush lawyers who created the legal framework authorizing their torture. Thiessen raged against what he called "selective McCarthyism" in the Washington Post:

Where was the moral outrage when fine lawyers like John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Jim Haynes, Steve Bradbury and others came under vicious personal attack? Their critics did not demand simple transparency; they demanded heads. They called these individuals "war criminals" and sought to have them fired, disbarred, impeached and even jailed. Where were the defenders of the "al-Qaeda seven" when a Spanish judge tried to indict the "Bush six"? Philippe Sands, author of the "Torture Team," crowed: "This is the end of these people's professional reputations!" I don't recall anyone accusing him of "shameful" personal attacks.
The standard today seems to be that you can say or do anything when it comes to the Bush lawyers who defended America against the terrorists. But if you publish an Internet ad or ask legitimate questions about Obama administration lawyers who defended America's terrorist enemies, you are engaged in a McCarthyite witch hunt.

But aside from the likes of Keep America Safe board member Bill Kristol, the National Review's Andrew McCarthy and perpetual torture cheerleader Michelle Malkin, Thiessen has little company in defending Liz Cheney's slanders. Ken Starr, Ted Olsen, David Rivkin, Michael Mukasey, JAG/Senator Lindsey Graham and other leading lights of the conservative legal community all blasted Cheney's attacks as "shameful," condemning them as "unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications." As they pointed, the role played by the handful of attorneys isn't merely "as old as John Adams's representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston massacre." It also happened to be validated by the Supreme Court of the United States in its Hamdan and Boumediene decisions:

In several key cases, detainee advocates prevailed before the Supreme Court. To suggest that the Justice Department should not employ talented lawyers who have advocated on behalf of detainees maligns the patriotism of people who have taken honorable positions on contested questions and demands a uniformity of background and view in government service from which no administration would benefit.

Nevertheless, many conservative commentators who agreed that Liz Cheney was "out-of-bounds" insist her father and the Bush torture team were similarly slandered by the left.
Take, for example, self-proclaimed moderate conservative David Brooks. While calling the Cheney-Kristol ad questioning the loyalty of public servants "tremendously unfortunate," Brooks found equivalence where there is none:

"So, there has been a fair bit of criticism from fellow conservatives toward this.
But, again, I would say, if you look at the words that were hurled at Dick Cheney, who I am no fan of, but, believe me, he has been the subject of calumnies worse...
Well, if are you calling people evil, and members of the Taliban, or members of al-Qaida, or members of evil conspiracies, that is the corrosive factor here, who -- regardless of who you are talking to, which public servant you are talking to. There's ways to talk and there's ways not to talk."

And that line was echoed by former Bill Frist staffer turned right-wing radio host and CNN regular Amy Holmes. Appearing Friday night on Real Time with Bill Maher, Holmes served up the same "yes, but" response to the Liz Cheney imbroglio:

HOLMES: I agree with you. I don't think it's remotely fair to tar lawyers with the crimes of their clients. You could never have anyone defending a murderer or a rapist or anything like that and we do have a system where you get a fair defense, but other folks say... I don't agree with it... but turnabout is fair play. Look at what the left did to the lawyers in the Justice Department who were trying to give advice under the Bush administration. They were singled out. You know they were... fingers were pointed at them...
MAHER: Oh lord...
HOLMES: ...to try to tear them down and I think a lawyer should be able to do his job...
MAHER: Wow...
HOLMES: ...without being tarred as you say...
MAHER: That is quite an analysis there.

And so it goes in right-wing Bizarro World. Whether or not they support Liz Cheney's slander of DOJ attorneys who by defending even the most odious terror detainees upheld the highest values of the Constitution, the conservative commentariat believes that the Bush lawyers who rationalized away U.S. and international law to enable detainee torture deserve the same or greater respect.
Back in 1997, Seinfeld introduced Americans to the "Unvitation." The unvitation allows the cynical person to seemingly satisfy the demands of social etiquette by extending an invitation to an event or gathering which they know the recipient will - or must - reject. So, too, Republicans have perfected the art of the "Unpology," enabling this generation of Republican wrong-doers to deliver the facade of apology by uttering obligatory words of remorse devoid of actual regret, contrition - or even an admission of guilt.
By declaring their "pride" in Bush-era waterboarding, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are at least being honest. As for their supporters, well, yada yada yada.
UPDATE: It is worth recalling Professor Jonathan Turley's lament that the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report which concluded John Yoo and Jay Bybee "exercised poort judgment" threatens to undermine the legal basis for accountability laid down at Nuremberg. As Turley put it:

Poor judgment is when you invite the NRA's Wayne LaPierre and Susan Brady to a small dinner party. Arguing for torture and misrepresenting settled law to facilitate a torture program is usually viewed as something of a slightly higher order than "poor judgment" or "bad form."
That is why the movie was not called "Poor Judgment at Nuremberg."