Whoever is in charge of the the New York Times Opinion twitter account chose to pick this pull quote to send out to the twitterverse.

The American Bar Association should signal that anyone who defends the border patrol’s mistreatment of children will not be considered a member in good standing of the legal profession.

Some lawyers, being insufferably myopic, naturally parsed this for the immaterial aspects, that the ABA doesn’t get to decide who is a “member in good standing of the legal profession” and would never do that anyway. Obviously, the ABA is irrelevant to that call, it did put its two cents in on the wrong side of the salient issue. And given Model Rule 8.4(g), it’s not much of a stretch.

Others focused on the underlying op-ed by Kate Cronin-Furman, an assistant professor of human rights at University College London, who attended Columbia and claims to have practiced law in New York. What would one expect, some replied?

Who, you might ask, is the target here? The same government lawyer that Judge Kopf and I wrote about, Sarah Fabian. The context is how lower-level functionaries are “just following orders,” and so need to be thwarted to prevent a lawyer who doesn’t want to be ruined by the righteous mob as a Nazi foot soldier from representing the government.

The lawyer who stood up in court to try to parse the meaning of “safe and sanitary” conditions — suggesting that this requirement might not include toothbrushes and soap for the children in border patrol custody if they were there for a “shorter term” stay — passed an ethics exam to be admitted to the bar. Similar to the way the American Medical Association has made it clear that its members must not participate in torture, the American Bar Association should signal that anyone who defends the border patrol’s mistreatment of children will not be considered a member in good standing of the legal profession. This will deter the participation of some, if only out of concern over their future career prospects.

But nobody cares about the ABA. And nobody cares what this dolt who’s so clueless that she doesn’t know that the ABA has no power over lawyers says. So what’s the problem?

Real estate at the New York Times is precious. There is no bigger soap box, for better or worse. Many people want to stand atop it and scream their most passionate beliefs to the very large mob. The New York Times editorial editor and staff make choices about whom to allow on their property, who gets to stand on their soap box.

After due deliberation, they chose Kate Cronin-Furman. After reading what she proffered, including the paragraph above, the New York Times made a decision that these words, these ideas, were worthy of its real estate. That it was substantively dumb, even though there are no shortage of lawyers at the NYT who knew better, not only didn’t put the kibosh on this op-ed, but wasn’t even worthy of editorial correction before it saw daylight.

And to add insult to injury, whoever pressed the button for the NYT Opinion twitter account affirmatively picked the pull quote to promote as an idea. It was a bad twit. It was a bad op-ed.

At its most shallow level, the cry is that the lawyer charged with arguing the government’s position in court should be subject to approval by the unduly passionate mob, risking damnation should the mob decide they are offended by the argument. The hysterical but insipid scream, but they’re defending mass atrocities and that’s different. Maybe that’s why the NYT decided to air this op-ed. There’s been a substantial increase in Nazi rhetoric of late. Concentration camps?

But to call for the ouster of lawyers for representing unpopular people, ideas the woke despise, crosses the Rubicon. The nuanced rationalization is that this isn’t about individuals, but lawyers defending a government headed by “literally Hitler,” which makes it different.

First, this conveniently nuanced excuse ignores what just happened to Lawprof Ron Sullivan, punished for the attenuated “unsafe feelings” of the underprivileged at Harvard for representing Harvey Weinstein. He’s no government lawyer.

Second, once the righteous mob is emboldened to destroy the career of a lawyer for making an argument on behalf of government with which it disagrees, it’s barely a baby step to extend their outrage to any lawyer representing a client the mob deems awful. Mobs aren’t good with nuance, but even if they were, this nuance misses the core problem: if harming children is the line, then the individual defendant who is accused of harming children has committed the same sin. How dare a lawyer defend such an animal? Destroy the lawyer to teach all other lawyers not to defend these awful people.

And, indeed, Kronin-Furman can’t make it through her op-ed without blurring the line.

Many Americans have been asking each other “But what can we DO?” The answer is that we call these abuses mass atrocities and use the tool kit this label offers us to fight them. So far, mobilization against what’s happening on the border has mostly followed standard political activism scripts: raising public awareness, organizing protests, phoning our congressional representatives. These efforts are critical, but they aren’t enough. Children are suffering and dying. The fastest way to stop it is to make sure everyone who is responsible faces consequences.

Has America gone full Nazi, committing “mass atrocities”? If so, then demanding that lawyers “face consequences” by being disbarred by the ABA is the least of the problem, even if this woman who says she’s practiced law in New York doesn’t quite grasp that the ABA doesn’t get to oust lawyers from the profession. Even if the ABA wishes it could.

But that one hysterical ignoramus shrieks for consequences for lawyers who represent clients she finds reprehensible isn’t really a big deal. We’re littered with the unduly passionate screaming nonsense these days, and the unduly passionate who believe it. That the New York Times deems this idiocy worthy of its real estate, the cry to destroy lawyers for representing the unpopular, however, is a big deal. When the NYT embraces Dick the Butcher’s approach, it’s a very big deal.