I'm getting more and more troubled by the Cheneys.

It's one thing for the former VP to be misguided about the Iraq invasion. But now he and daughter Liz seem absolutely obsessed by terrorism.

Maybe, as some commentators have suggested, they're simply trying to restore Dick Cheney's reputation. It seems more dangerous than that, though. My sense is that the two of them really do believe that to prevent another terrorist attack, the United States has to abandon some of the country's most important democratic principles.

Dick Cheney, who's getting lots of attention from the media, is still trying to paint Barack Obama as a softie who can't protect the country. And Liz and her Keep America Safe group are attacking the loyalty of lawyers who have defended terrorism suspects, calling them "Al Qaeda Seven."

Fortunately, numerous lawyers - including some with strong conservative and Republican credentials - have struck back, noting that defense of the accused is a crucial, All-American principle.

And Saturday's Wall Street Journal contains a chilling account from an attorney who knows first-hand what can result from Cheney-style intimidation.

Stephen Jones, who was lead defense attorney for Oklahoma terrorist Timothy McVeigh, writes that he took on that job because of his dedication to American principles of justice. "To me," he writes, "it was important in a period of growing domestic unrest and violence to demonstrate that Mr. McVeigh could receive a fair trial and zealous advocacy...."

The result: the destruction of his law practice and repeated threats against his life and the lives of family members.

The intimidation being practiced by Cheney and Keep America Safe, he says, will discourage lawyers from taking controversial cases. "The day when scare mongers can intimidate lawyers into not doing their jobs is a day in which justice is threatened," Jones writes. "The justice of a society is measured no by how it treats its best, but how it treats its worst."

This is beginning to feel way too much like the McCarthy era - and not just in the scary appeal to patriotism. There's a tinge of mania to it all.

And it didn't make me feel any better to read "The Cheney Government in Exile," New York magazine's recent article about the Cheneys. The vice president, says writer Joe Hagan, is hoping to help pave the way for daughter Liz's future in national politics.