Problems with lawyers
 
Watching how lawyers are responding to the 9/11 Commission is troubling.  Jeff Jarvis makes note that lawyers are part of the problem.

"Lawyers are necessarily a suspicious breed. They live by rules. They think in terms of us vs. them. They think contention. They argue for sport. They always think they can appeal to a higher authority. They aim for victory. They are patient.
All those traits have an impact on American society -- many or most of them not good."

Jarvis is making a broad point about society in general and is contrasting the lawyer world view to that of programmers.  I'm interested in borrowing Jarvis' analysis on lawyers, looking at the 9/11 Commission and contrasting it with historians. 

The lawyers I hear commenting on the 9/11 Commission, at least from the right, are making the argument that Wilson lied, Berger stole, Gorelick was judging her own policies, and Richard Ben-Veniste was a rabid partisan.  Since it is a principle among lawyers that one's credibility tends to be established by one's least credible statement, they saw the Commission and its Report as thoroughly comprimised by these somewhat less than disinterested public servants.  Hugh Hewitt has been especially lawyerly here.  And the lawyers have conformed to Jarvis' analysis, suspicious, looking to rules of courtroom evidence, us vs them, argumentative, claiming that all of this is authorotative, seeking to win the argument, and I presume patient as well. 

Historians are aware that all sources are full of bias.  We know that Einhard did not write an objective account of the life of Charlemagne.  That the historiography of Napoleon is strongly for or against.  That the answer you get depends as much on the evidence you consult and on the questions you ask as it does on what really happened.  We are not witnesses of the past, but have to rely on written accounts that are full of the author's own intent and understanding of events.  But historians have a method.  The historical method, developed during the Rennaisance and advanced in the centuries since, aims to get at the truth despite the presence of bias and the problem that 1st person accounts will tend to protect the interests of the author/speaker.  I have a much greater level of confidence that I can read the 9/11 Commission Report and find useful knowledge than the lawers seem to.  Its a product of historical rather than legal training.