Only weeks after some expressed outrage over the selection of Ken Starr as Baylor University’s next president, their convenient bogeyman demonstrated the gaping divide between sensible conservatism and what can only be described as underhanded political rabble-rousing. We’re happy to note Starr is in the former camp, as should be all Americans who cherish liberty and justice.

Starr, dean of Pepperdine University’s School of Law and a former appeals judge, this week led an impressive array of conservatives in castigating Liz Cheney and her right-wing group Keep America Safe for mounting a tawdry smear campaign against Obama administration lawyers who earlier in their careers defended or prepared briefs for alleged terrorists incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay.

This courageous stand, taken by the same man vilified by some for being way too zealous in investigating Bill and Hillary Clinton back in the 1990s, attracted national attention. We’re glad for the attention — and glad that Starr led the counterattack against the increasingly reckless and destructive rhetoric of Cheney.

For one thing, it showed that Starr is a thinking conservative, not one who simply follows marching orders from inflexible ideologues and party mantras. For another, it reminds Americans that this remains a nation of laws — and that all defendants, even the apparent worst of us, deserve justice and legal counsel.

That’s our system — and to assault it for political gain is to batter the very principles that make us unique among nations.

Starr took his stand — one that, frankly, would have been easy to duck — after Cheney’s group sought to portray Justice Department lawyers as terrorist sympathizers for previously undertaking the defense of some of the accused at Guantanamo Bay.

Cheney’s group dubbed several of the attorneys involved “the Al-Qaeda Seven.” The Cheney group specifically attacked Attorney General Eric Holder for not disclosing details about some of the lawyers who had once represented suspected terrorists as clients, then went on to blast “the Department of Jihad” and question the values of those who work in the U.S. Department of Justice.

Some of us need to remember that our nation’s greatest strengths reside with rights afforded the accused, including the right to an attorney to represent them, no matter how damning or seemingly obvious the charges.

We wonder sometimes if those who are part of this ugly political mob have not read the American classic “The Ox-Bow Incident.” Even better, some of them should consult the Constitution and the Sixth Amendment. Maybe Cheney missed some of this in her legal training.

“It’s very important for lawyers to be willing to take on unpopular causes,” Starr said on MSNBC’s “Countdown” (of all programs). “This is in the finest traditions of our country. I hope our schoolchildren still learn about the example of John Adams, because we certainly teach it in law school — John Adams taking on (as clients) the British redcoats who were charged with the Boston Massacre.”

Following the twisted logic of Cheney and Keep America Safe, Adams wasn’t a patriot but a tool of the enemy. (Till his final days, Adams regarded his role with rare pride.)

But if there’s a silver lining in all of this, it’s that we’re confident Starr will reaffirm such concepts of American justice when he assumes the top spot at Baylor in June. His bold stand makes us doubly proud he’s soon to walk among us.