On the evils of lawyers defending people

As you have probably read, the Bush team is now attacking the pro-bono lawyers attempting to defend Guantanamo detainees. One Bush official went on a radio program to list the names of a number of large law firms representing detainees and suggested their corporate clients should either force them to stop defending the "terrorists" or find other law firms. A Wall Street Journal piece did the same thing. Obviously, the Bushies are firing with both barrels loaded. Today's NY Times editorial on the subject begins:

No one who has followed President Bush’s policies on detainees should be surprised when a member of his team scorns American notions of justice. But even by that low standard, the administration’s new attack on lawyers who dare to give those prisoners the meager representation permitted them is contemptible.

And ends:

The interview was a greatest-hits remix of Bush administration nonsense about Guantánamo, including Mr. Stimson’s message to corporate executives that lawyers “are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line in 2001.” The only terrorists at Guantánamo associated with 9/11 were transferred there recently after being held for years in secret C.I.A. prisons where no lawyer could enter.

Not only do we find Mr. Stimson’s threats appalling, we differ with him about 9/11. The tragedy and crime of that day was that thousands of innocents were slaughtered — not that it hurt some companies’ profit margins.

Isn't it so typical of the Bush Administration to rank the loss of profits above the loss of life?