Rep. Pete Hoekstra has responded to a letter sent to him by a group of former military intelligence and national security officials criticizing his position on bringing Gitmo inmates to a maximum security prison in Standish, Michigan. His spokesman did not address the substantive criticism in the letter, choosing instead to dismiss it as a merely political attack:

Hoekstra spokesman Dave Yonkman dismissed the letter as a thinly veiled political attack from Democratic partisans.

“Congressman Hoesktra is concerned with what the people of Standish and the state of Michigan have to say about transferring terrorist detainees into our state, not the opinions of a bunch of out-of-state Democrat contributors and partisans,” Yonkman said.

The Grand Rapids Press article does note that some of those who signed the letter have contributed to Democrats:

Campaign finance records reveal a distinct Democratic tilt to many who signed the letter. Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick contributed to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 campaign for president and that of Hillary Clinton in 2008; Margaret Henoch, a retired CIA officer, gave to the Democratic National Committee and Barack Obama; and Vic Comras, a former State Department counselor, contributed to Kerry’s campaign.

But this is a highly selective look at the signers of that letter. Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton has, in fact, supported Democratic candidates as well, but only after being one of the leaders of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. Eaton was the Commanding General of the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team, which means he was the guy in charge of training the Iraqi military. He became a critic of the Bush administration after he retired based on his experience with them, arguing that Bush consistently ignored the advice of commanders on the ground.

Vice Admiral Lee Gunn served 35 years in the Navy and was highly decorated for his work protecting the country. He is the president of the American Security Project, whose board is made up of both Republican and Democratic officials, including former Republican senators Warren Rudman and Chuck Hagel.

Michael Kraft spent 19 years as senior adviser with the U.S. Department of State Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, hired under Reagan. After retiring in 2004, he was hired by the Bush administration as a consultant for the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security.

Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham is a highly decorated former military intelligence officer who served at Guantanamo Bay, where he had access to the government’s files on all of the detainees held there. He was so appalled by the use of fragmentary, contradictory and coerced evidence there that he resigned his commission and wrote an affidavit for the Supreme Court urging them to allow the detainees there to have access to civilian courts. Abraham is, in fact, a lifelong Republican whose civilian work was with the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation.

It seems rather absurd to dismiss out of hand the criticisms of this group of retired military officers and counterterrorism experts as merely a partisan attack. That’s a politically convenient answer, but it does nothing to address the substance of the criticisms.