Solicitor General Clement: Don't Let The Door Hit You In The Ass On The Way Out

CLEMENT ARGUES BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT

Being solicitor general of the U.S. -- in other words its chief lawyer -- is a prestigious but thankless job. One would presume mostly thankless for Paul Clement, who has had to argue on behalf of a presidential administration that has determinedly ignored the rule of law and postulated some extraordinarily dangerous and inane legal policies.

Well, Clement will be history as of June 2 after serving the entire Bush administration first as deputy solicitor general and then as solicitor general over a seven-year period.

There are many special moments in Clement's pleadings before the Supreme Court, but my hands-down favorite is his appearance in March 2006 to argue on behalf of the administration in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's bodyguard, was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and hustled off to the Navy brig at Guanánamo Bay. At issue then -- and still very much at issue now -- is whether the military tribunals created to try him and other terrorists are constitutional because the law passed by Congress authorizing them pretty much suspended all civil liberties, including habeas corpus. That is a writ issued by a judge ordering that a prisoner be brought before the court so it can be determined whether he is being imprisoned lawfully.

Habeas corpus is not some bleeding-heart concept. It is one of the pillars on which the American criminal justice stands and has served the nation well in times of war and peace for over 200 years. This means that habeas corpus is anathema to the Bush administration.

This was on full view as Clement, double-spoke his way through an oral argument to the effect that Congress didn't really mean to suspend habeas corpus but had merely "stumbled on" its suspension of the Writ. Clement said that this was okey-dokey because the president can do pretty much whatever he wants to do anyway as commander in chief in time of war.

Clement's laissez faire argument stopped Justice David Souter cold. He opined that:

"The suspension of the Writ [is the most] stupendously significant act [Congress can undertake]. "Are you really saying Congress may validly suspend it inadvertently?"

Souter would appear to have Clement in a box, adding:

"If you accept that the military commissions [tribunals] apply the laws of war, don't you have to accept the Geneva Conventions?"

Clement:

"They can adjudicate that the Geneva Conventions doesn't apply."

Souter:

"You can't have it both ways. The government can't say the president is operating under the laws of war, as recognized by Congress, and then for purposes of defining those laws, say the Geneva Conventions don't apply."

Clement then went deeper into the administration's world of smoke and mirrors.

He declared that the tribunals hew to the laws of war, so if a detainee has a claim like Hamdan's, he should bring it before a tribunal. But Clement was at his weakest -- and most obtuse -- when defending his claim that Gitmo detainees like Hamdan are different from regular POWs covered by the convention because . . . well, because they just are.

Justice Anthony Kennedy interjected:

"If a group is going to try some people, do you first have the trial and then challenge the legitimacy of the tribunal?"

Clement didn't like Kennedy's word choice:

"This isn't just some group of people. This is the president invoking his authority to try terrorists."

Justice John Paul Stevens, saying out loud what must have been on the minds of all of the justices, pondered whether Congress had stripped the Supreme Court of jurisdiction to rule on Hamdam's habeas corpus claims:

"Do you say it's a permissible suspension of the Writ or that it's not a suspension of the Writ?"

Replied Clement:

"Both."

And so it went.
The top court, with Chief Justice Roberts abstaining, later rejected Clement's legal flapdoodle and ruled 5-3 in Hamdan's favor, in retrospect but a temporary setback for the White House, which with the dutiful approval of Congress put a new law on the books pretty much identical to the old law.

Illustration by Art Lien/NBC News

More Kudos For The Worst President Ever

Now comes John Conyers:

"[I] is our view that if you do not obtain the constitutionally required congressional authorization before launching preemptive military strikes against Iran or any other nation, impeachment proceedings should be pursued. Because of these concerns, we request the opportunity to meet with you as soon as possible to discuss these matters. As we have recently marked the fifth year since the invasion of Iraq, and the grim milestone of 4,000 U.S. deaths in Iraq, your Administration should not unilaterally involve this country in yet another military conflict that promises high costs to American blood and treasure."

More here.

Now comes William Bunch:

"I've seen a lot of sad things in American politics in my lifetime -- the resignation of a president who became a national disgrace after he oversaw a campaign of break-ins and cover-ups, another who circumvented the Constitution to trade arms for hostages, and yet is now hailed as national hero. And those paled to what we have seen in the last seven years -- flagrant disregard for the Constitution, the launching of a "pre-emptive" war on false pretenses, and discussions about torture and other shocking abuses inside the White House inner sanctum.

"But now it's come to this: A new low that I never imagined was even possible.

"President Bush went on foreign soil today, and committed what I consider an act of political treason: Comparing the candidate of the U.S. opposition party to appeasers of Nazi Germany -- in the very nation that was carved out from the horrific calamity of the Holocaust. Bush's bizarre and beyond-appropriate detour into American presidential politics took place in the middle of what should have been an occasion for joy: A speech to Israeli's Knesset to honor that nation's 60th birthday."

More here.

Yet Another Reason For Staying In Iraq

First it was WMD. Then it was spreading democracy. Then it was defeating Al Qaeda. Now it's to keep up morale in the military. Honest.

Photograph by Michael Kamber for The New York Times

Should Burma Be Saved From Itself?

It is ironic, to say the least, that it is France these days who is proposing the invasion of a sovereign state and not the reliably bellicose U.S. But that is exactly what is happening with regard to Burma, which while sovereign is beyond broken and the miseries of its people beyond fathomable.

More here.

Recession? What Recession?

Francis Bacon's "Triptych, 1976" sells for a record $86.3 million.

Aussie Pol Fends Off Quokka Rumors

DO WHAT TO A WHAT? MORE HERE.

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

MT. RUSHMORE (1969)
By Lee Friedlander

Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

Cindy McCain refuses to release her tax returns. This is not just a questionable political decision that threatens to haunt her husband’s campaign for the next six months. It is also the wrong decision. Mrs. McCain needs to change her mind and release the returns as quickly as possible. How Republican John McCain, the presumptive presidential nominee who rightly fancies himself the king of transparency on Capitol Hill, and his campaign strategists can permit this open sore to fester is unimaginable.

-- THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Cindy McCain, whose husband has been a critic of the violence in Sudan, sold off more than $2 million in mutual funds whose holdings include companies that do business in the African nation.

The sale on Wednesday came after The Associated Press questioned the investments in light of calls by John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, for international financial sanctions against the Sudanese leadership.

-- JIM KUHNHENN

An Edwards Bounce for Obama in Kentucky?

Now that Senator John Edwards has endorsed Barack Obama for President, most pundits have looked at the long-term effect of his endorsement on white voters who initially supported Edwards but have since moved to support Clinton over the past few months. However, the central question on the importance of Edwards' endorsement may be demonstrated as quickly as next Tuesday's primary in Kentucky.

Kentucky is a close neighbor to Edwards' state of North Carolina. Kentucky's demographics, which have striking similarities to West Virginia (race, age, median income and education background beyond high school), enables us to have a first look at any electoral benefit that Edwards' endorsement may have in a contest that Edwards' probably would have won if he were still in the race.

The bottom line: If Edwards' endorsement can decrease the 28 point lead in half by Tuesday, from 58 – 30 to 52 – 38, then Edwards' endorsement will be worth the three months of waiting for it. If not, Edwards' endorsement will be about as effective as Ted Kennedy's. We'll see Tuesday night.

-- ACSPARK

Did the House GOP caucus take a hard line on pork-barrel spending or adopt policies to cut federal spending? No. Republican voters and conservative pundits begged the House and Senate caucuses to make dramatic breaks with the previous six years and adopt real conservative policies of fiscal responsibility and federalism. What did they do? They offered to stop earmarking only if Democrats followed suit, a deal everyone knew would never take place. Instead of appointing one single anti-pork activist to the House Appropriations Committee in Jeff Flake, they appointed Joe Bonner, a good Congressman but a well-known earmarker, and mostly because Flake’s anti-pork crusade irritates his colleagues.

-- ED MORRISSEY

In another decade, it will be commonplace for women to be running Fortune 500 companies, starting their share of new businesses, and running for president. This will not take place because of Hillary Clinton. But her campaign is a very significant milestone along the road we have travelled to give women the respect and dignity – and the power – that men demand for themselves.

-- RICK MORAN

There is a feeling among some of McCain's fellow veterans that his break with them on Iraq can be traced, at least partly, to his markedly different experience in Vietnam. McCain’s comrades in the Senate will not talk about this publicly. They are wary of seeming to denigrate McCain's service, marked by his legendary endurance in a Hanoi prison camp, when in fact they remain, to this day, in awe of it. And yet in private discussions with friends and colleagues, some of them have pointed out that McCain, who was shot down and captured in 1967, spent the worst and most costly years of the war sealed away, both from the rice paddies of Indochina and from the outside world. During those years, McCain did not share the disillusioning and morally jarring experiences of soldiers like Kerry, Webb and Hagel, who found themselves unable to recognize their enemy in the confusion of the jungle; he never underwent the conversion that caused Kerry, for one, to toss away some of his war decorations during a protest at the Capitol. Whatever anger McCain felt remained focused on his captors, not on his own superiors back in Washington.

-- MATT BAI

Cartoon by Garner/The Washington Times

When Expedience Trumps The Sisterhood

The fur is again flying in the feminist sandbox over the other big endorsement that Barack Obama received on Wednesday, this one from the National Abortion Rights Action League.

NARAL’s endorsement statement called Obama:

"A strong advocate for a woman's right to choose throughout his career in public office. He steadfastly supports and defends a woman's right to make the most personal, private decisions regarding her reproductive health without interference from government or politicians."

But you would have thought this leading pro-choice group had thrown in its lot with John McCain or Phyllis Schlafly. The reaction was fast and furious and sense of betrayal nearly suffocating.

The National Women's Political Caucus was:

"[D]isappointed . . . The Caucus knows Hillary Clinton to be a clear leader and a consistent champion of the issues that NARAL and NWPC have in common. We believe that this announcement at this time will divide the choice community at a time when we need to stand united."

Harrumphed EMILY's List head honcho Ellen Malcolm:

"I think it is tremendously disrespectful to Sen. Clinton - who held up the nomination of a FDA commissioner in order to force approval of Plan B and who spoke so eloquently during the Supreme Court nomination about the importance of protecting Roe vs. Wade - to not give her the courtesy to finish the final three weeks of the primary process. It certainly must be disconcerting for elected leaders who stand up for reproductive rights and expect the choice community will stand with them."

The key words here are divide and disrespectful, because for these groups the primary election season has been all about getting a woman -- and a particular woman -- nominated. All other concerns have been secondary.

That's okay, but Obama's position on choice is pretty much identical to Clinton's, as NARAL recognizes. But NARAL recognizes something else very important, as well: That Obama stands a better chance of being the next president than Clinton and political expedience is paramount in the long run.

At the risk of bringing down further fire and brimstone from feminists who hew to a rigid orthodoxy and have blindered themselves to Clinton's determined self destruction, I have a daughter and my major charitable contribution year in and year out is to Planned Parenthood, so I feel like I have a stake in this as well even though I'm some old guy.

So chill, okay?

Barack Obama, The Purple Belt & 'Yet Unclosed Scab’ Of Racism In America

Purple areas are where Clinton got 65-plus percent of the to-date primary vote. Green areas are West Virginia districts she won.

An alien from another planet could be excused for getting whiplashes (this particular alien has more than one head) in trying to decipher these results from voting in a strange land on planet Earth called the United States of America:

* In a state called West Virginia, voters in a primary election went for a white woman over a black man by a lopsided margin.

* In a state called Mississippi, voters in a special House election went for a white man riding the coattails of the black man who was drubbed in West Virginia.

* * * * *

Ah yes, race in America. Or, as Tony Blankley puts it, "the yet unclosed scab that has run deep through our history." But as the alien learns to its dismay, race is a lot more than a matter of black and white.

Well, that scab is going to be picked to a fare the well from here to Election Day and beyond. And while I would much rather hear about health-care reform, getting the hell out of Iraq or nuclear non-proliferation, the discussion is long overdue.

This discussion is bound to be an ugly one on one level – the one that will bubble determinedly beneath the surface – and painfully sincere on another level – the one on TV political news discussion shows.

But all of the talk that Barack Obama "transcends race" as he marches toward a rendezvous with destiny as possibly the first African-American president is as silly as the talk that he has "a blue-collar" problem because of his race.

While the presumptive Democratic nominee has not been shy to confront race, as he did in his extraordinary speech in Philadelphia on March 18, there is no evidence that people who normally wouldn't vote for a black person for dog catcher are flocking to him. Nor is his difficulty in attracting less educated, less affluent voters from union households during the long primary season necessarily race based. It's class based and it so happens that a majority of the members of that class are white.

Those of us for whom race, gender and number of heads are not factors when we vote for dog catcher or president were painfully reminded on Tuesday in West Virginia that race was perhaps the biggest issue, and may have been a factor in the areas in the purple belt in the large map above.

(Blankley correctly suggests that West Virginia also would have been a huge negative for someone like Colin Powell who, pardon the term, is about as white bread as prominent blacks get, so it's not necessarily just an Obama thing.)

Anyhow, this purple belt runs roughly from parts of Texas through parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania to the southern tier of New York state. And of course West Virginia, which voted after the map was compiled. It was there that Obama failed to win a single district for the first time in a 2008 primary and an astonishing number of voters made no secret of not voting for him not on the basis of class but race. After all, Hillary Clinton is an Ivy League "elitist" like him, but she is not black.

As DHinMI, a blogger at Daily Kos notes, despite some recently emergent pockets of affluence, the racial and cultural character of the purple belt has been more static than any place in the U.S. since forever and most of it encompasses an area known as Appalachia.

This region is notable for being overwhelmingly white and disproportionately elderly, for having few medium- or large-sized cities, third-world poverty rates and ethnic sensitivities that skew heavily to support for "their own kind" and not outsiders. And as Josh Marshall reminds us, back in the day the residents of Appalachia hated both slaves and slave owners.

Does this mean that the burghers of West Virginia and environs are racists or bigots or whatever? Or just culturally conservative?

Answering that question is out of my league, but I do believe that they see someone like Obama to be a threat to their way of life, whereas the areas where Obama has done well tend to be multi-ethnic and multicultural, although not exclusively so since there are substantial swaths of black on the big map have neither attribute.

* * * * *

As it is, the voters in the purple belt comprise only about 20 percent of the electorate, but to deny that there are not rich veins of racism elsewhere in the U.S. is to deny the obvious: Despite enormous gains by non-white Americans, racism is alive and well 40 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

A consequence of this is that presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and his party of old white guys will be a magnet for Democrats for whom skin color is their biggest issue.

This is unfortunate for the gang once known as the Party of Lincoln, but is richly deserved. But it is unfortunate for Obama, as well.

The degree of that unfortunate-ness will be determined to some extent by the lengths to which McCain, who already is running hard on the GOP's "American-ness" theme, will be willing to pander to bigots given that he and his party are pretty much toast on the economy and other issues that really matter.

Another consequence is that the Republican Party, which has done a crack-up job of squandering its brand, let alone its hegemony in Washington and many statehouses, could become marginalized with a predominately Southern base. Perhaps it can rename itself the Purple Belt Party in honor of this signal accomplishment.

Of Candidates & Norwegian Blue Parrots

One of the funniest Monty Python skits ever takes on new meaning.

Customer: Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.

Pet-shop owner: No, no he's not dead, he's -- he's resting! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian blue, isn't it, aye? Beautiful plumage!

Customer: That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not half an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it being tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.

Pet-shop owner: Well, he's, he's, ah, probably pining for the fiords.

Customer: (Takes parrot from cage, bangs its head on counter, lets it drop to floor.) Now, that's what I call a dead parrot.

Pet-shop owner: No, he's stunned! . . . You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian blues stun easily, Major.

If you don't get the point, matey, click here.

President Bush Sacrifices For All of Us . . .

. . . by giving up golf.

Explains The Decider in an honest to goodness interview not a parody in The Onion:

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Whew!

Hat tip to Robert Stein at Connecting.the.Dots

Another Award For The Attack Quaker

Signe Wilkinson, a buddy and former colleague at the Philadelphia Daily News, whose editorial cartoons are familiar to Kiko's House regulars, has won a Poor Man's Pulitzer. That is the nickname for the RFK Awards given by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Organization to honor outstanding reporting (and cartooning) on the lives and strife of disadvantaged people.

Signe ("self portrait" at right), who describes herself as an Attack Quaker because of her spiritual beliefs and in-your-face work, was the first woman to win a real Pulitzer for editorial cartooning and the second Daily News staffer for whom I worked to win an RFK.

The first was in 1994 when photographer Susan Winters won for "Portrait of a Struggle," photographs taken on her fourth trip to South Africa in the run-up to that country's historic first multi-racial election won by Nelson Mandela.

I was Susan's editor and I am perhaps proudest of that one of all the accolades that she and others who worked for me won.

They're Pump Out Of Luck

Mom-and-pop service stations are running into an unexpected problem as gasoline continues its unstoppable march toward $4 a gallon: Thousands of old-fashioned pumps can’t register more than $3.99 on their spinning mechanical dials and can only count up to $99.99 for a total sale, which prevents SUV and truck owners from filling their tanks all the way.

Hat tip to 1115.org

Do You Have A Piece of The Rock?

If so, please return it. More here.

Photograph by Alamy

Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

John Edwards endorses Obama, probably to annoy the heck out of the 7 percent of West Virginia Democrats who voted for him yesterday. I can't help but suspect that Edwards won't be attorney general in the new administration, or at least chief judge at the war crimes tribunal.

-- WILL BUNCH

In a reprise of his own stump speeches, John Edwards simply switched pronouns and endorsed Barack Obama tonight, positioning himself as the leading candidate for Attorney General in the new Administration.

In doing so, he was backing the clear winner of the nomination, preceding it with a eulogy for Hillary Clinton's campaign.

-- ROBERT STEIN

The Republican nominee, whether we feel comfortable about it or not, isn't necessarily seen as intimately associated with the Republican brand. Even so, I think that Republican nominee is running uphill.

-- PAUL

This is an interesting development -- it seems that Thad Cochran, 70; Pete Domenici, 76; Chuck Grassley, 74 all told The Hill that they're too old to be Vice President. They're also, of course, all roughly the same age as the Republican Party's presidential nominee. I think this'll be an interesting issue to keep an eye on. Young people will definitely mock McCain for being old and his age will probably render people below a certain age immune to the cult of personality around him that's impacted a lot of self-loathing boomers in the press.

But if anyone develops serious worries about McCain's age per se, it'll probably be his fellow senior citizens. Most folks I'm familiar with in their seventies are, like these GOP Senators, pretty aware of and realistic about their own situation and that of their friends and other peers in ways that might give them doubts about McCain.

-- MATTHEW YGLESIAS

[A]s my husband pointed out this morning, if the inability to concede error or defeat even in light of irrefutable, empirical evidence and in the face of spiraling support and tanking morale is feminism, George Bush must be the feminist icon of the ages.

-- DAHLIA LITHWICK

This is one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever seen in a political poll. It beats the 90% approval rating of Bush after 9/11 and even surpasses the 60+% support Clinton enjoyed even after it was revealed he is a sniveling liar.

No less than 82% of the American people think the country is on the wrong track.

Don’t talk to me about the poll’s internals or bias. Are you paying attention? 82% of your fellow countrymen think that America is a sucky place to live right now.

Holy Jesus! You can’t get 82% of Americans to agree about anything. I’ll bet less than 82% of Americans like chocolate ice cream. I would wager that less than 82% of Americans like McDonalds hamburgers. And I’d bet the farm that less than 82% of Americans like old re-runs of The Carol Burnett Show even though I believe you have to be brain dead not to recognize its brilliance.

-- RICK MORAN

An unwelcome legacy of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's faltering campaign for president is a $21-million debt, half from her own pockets, and some political insiders think she may have to turn to her political nemesis to help resolve it.

-- PAUL MORAIN

The Rev. John C. Hagee, whose anti-Catholic remarks created a controversy when Senator John McCain received his endorsement for the Republican presidential nomination with fanfare, has issued a letter expressing regret for "any comments that Catholics have found hurtful."

The letter was issued after weeks of conversations between Mr. Hagee and Roman Catholic Republicans about repairing the damage to Mr. McCain's campaign and the alliance built over many years between conservative Catholics and evangelicals.

Mr. McCain said Tuesday that he had not been involved in brokering the apology letter from Mr. Hagee, a megachurch pastor in San Antonio who broadcasts to 200 countries, but that he found it "a laudable thing."

-- LAURIE GOODSTEIN

A steep descent brings Clinton's plane to Charleston's hilltop airport. After an appropriate wait, she steps from the plane and pretends to wave to a crowd of supporters; in fact, she is waving to 10 photographers underneath the airplane's wing. She pretends to spot an old friend in the crowd, points and gives another wave; in fact, she is waving at an aide she had been talking with on the plane minutes earlier.

-- DANA MILBANK

Samuel A. Maverick (!803 - 1870) had a life filled with adventures too numerous to list, but in his later years as a rancher who refused to brand his cattle, his name entered the American vocabulary as a non-conformist; a person of independent thought and action. That's hardly descriptive of John McCain, a man who followed in the family tradition of military careers, used family connections to get into the Naval Academy (and nearly flunk out) and whose political career is and has been marked by the influence of lobbyists and special interest spokesmen of dubious allegiance. The cattle at this Maverick's ranch seem to have dubious markings on them and maybe it's time someone did brand John McCain's cattle.

-- CAPT. FOGG

The House GOP's new slogan -- "the change you deserve" -- also happens to be the marketing slogan for an anti-depressant drug.

-- DAVID KURTZ

Photograph by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Mother Scorned: Mary Tillman's Long Quest For The Truth

When the history of the U.S.'s conduct of the so-called War on Terror is written, it will be seen as a mosaic of politics over policy, not enough troops and support personnel, inadequate training, lousy intelligence and ever changing rationales.

The story of Pat Tillman, the NFL star turned Army Ranger who was killed in Afghanistan, is smack dab in the center of that mosaic, and were it not for the perspicacity of his mother, Mary Tillman, with a notable assist from The Associated Press, the extent of that abominable tragedy would never be known. And as it is, the full extent probably never will be.

Tillman, a rookie sensation at safety for the Arizona Cardinals, walked away from a multi-million dollar contract to enlist in the Army with his brother Kevin after the 9/11 attacks. After participating in the initial phase of the Iraq war, he completed training at Ranger School and was sent to Afghanistan.

On April 22, 2004, Pat Tillman was killed in what was initially claimed to be a firefight following a Taliban ambush.

The 27-year-old specialist was declared a hero and posthumously awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart. His death was milked unmercifully by the Pentagon and White House in one of the more shameful propaganda ploys of the twin wars that is reminiscent of the way that manufactured myth so completely displaced reality in the case of Army Private First Class Jessica Lynch.

Shameful because it was known within hours of Tillman's death that he was an apparent victim of friendly fire.

As it was, the Army's account of what happened soon began to unravel, and the real story trickled out in dribs and drabs because Mary Tillman never believed the official account and kept the heat on, while The Associated Press, in the finest tradition of investigative journalism, gave a team of reporters carte blanche to find out what really occurred.

What occurred was there were no Taliban and Tillman was killed at close range by fellow soldiers, so close that there were three bullet holes in close proximity in his forehead.

The elaborately orchestrated cover-up, which included encouraging soldiers to change their testimony to fit the ever-changing official versions, reached all the way to the White House, and the Army didn't even tell Tillman's parents that their son had not been killed by insurgents until well after a widely covered memorial service. Only a small handful of officers have been wrist slapped because of the cover-up and none have faced major disciplinary charges, let alone courts martial.

It has been assumed that as horrific as Tillman's death was, it was a classic example of friendly fire in which a trooper is accidentally killed in the heat of combat. But Mary Tillman, who was given access by sympathetic congressmen to classified Army documents that the AP and other media did not see, asserts in a new book that her son may have been murdered in cold blood.

In the just-published Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman, Mary Tillman says she strongly suspects that the men who shot her son stepped out of a Humvee to aim carefully at him and were not speeding by on a bumpy mountain road as they told Army investigators.

Mary Tillman writes that at one of the briefings the Army gave her after the cover-up was exposed, she expressed incredulity at Brigadier General Gary Jones, the lead investigator, who dismissed out of hand the account of Specialist Bryan O'Neal, who was just a few feet away from Tillman when gunfire erupted.

"No one got out of the vehicle. That early information is incorrect, and O'Neal is the least reliable witness because he was so traumatized," Mary Tillman says Jones told her.

"You won't believe O'Neal, but you'll believe the guys who were shooting at him!" she replied.

I cannot take sides regarding Mary Tillman's murder allegation absent an explanation as to why Tillman's fellow Rangers would want to kill him. But I do know that the Army shows no interest in investigating whether the death was a crime, as the bullet holes in his forehead fired from a Ranger's precision sniper's rifle might indicate, while key evidence such as bullet fragments have gone missing, a familiar occurrence in cover-ups.

And that it is Mary Tillman and certainly not the Army who holds the high ground.

More here.

Photograph by Susan Walsh/The Associated Press

Another Setback For The Torture Regime

Although no one is coming right out and saying so, the decision to drop charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani, the so-called 20th 9/11 hijacker, after he spent nearly seven years in custody is because he was tortured, the Bush administration is having a dickens of a time getting anybody convicted, let alone tried, when torture rears its ugly head these days, and has an increasingly urgent need to cover it's criminally culpable backside.

Why just the other day, the military judge presiding over the case of Al-Qahtani and five other men facing death penalty trials at the Guantánamo Bay branch of the Rumsfeld Gulag gave the boot to a key general in the military tribunal system because of his obvious partiality to the prosecutor.

This followed another military judge's threat to abort the prosecution of terrorist Omar Khadr unless the government coughs up the logs of Khadr's five-plus years of captivity, something that it has been reluctant to do because . . . he was tortured.

Which came hard on the heels of a former Guantánamo prosecutor stating that political pressure and . . . yes the use of torture, had undermined the entire tribunal system.

The case of Al-Qahtani is especially odoriferous.

The Saudi apparently missed being able to board one of the three 9/11 planes because he had been denied entry to the U.S. by an immigration agent. He was arrested later and bounced from brig to brig before ending up in Gitmo, where he is said to have been sexually taunted, forced to perform dog tricks and forcibly given enemas, although we can't be sure of this because his records were mysteriously lost.

As Emptywheel notes, it is probable that Al-Qahtani's five co-defendants also were tortured but remain on trial.

Howcum?

The reason that the Al-Qahtani prosecution was dropped like a live grenade may be that he didn't reveal anything admissible and later recanted the confession he signed after being tortured. But there is an even bigger reason, as well:

The White House was so eager to literally put the screws to Al-Qahtani -- and so disinterested in making its case the old-fashioned way through painstaking investigative work -- that no less personages that then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and David Addington, who is Vice President Cheney's point man for torture, flew down to Gitmo to push a key staffer there to write a memo authorizing the torture of him.

You see, putting Al-Qahtani on trial also would risk putting on trial Bush administration insiders like Gonzo, Addington, Rummy and even Dick himself.

Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail in Toronto reports that a Canadian court has ordered the release of a 2004 Royal Canadian Mounted Police memo indicating that the U.S. paid Pakistan a $500,000 bounty for Abdullah Khadr, a Canadian who is Omar Khadr's oldest brother and is in detention in Canada while the U.S. seeks his deportation for offering "material support" for terrorism.

Abdullah Khadr's lawyers say that he was detained in Pakistan for 17 days and tortured under CIA supervision. In any event, it seems unlikely that the U.S.'s good buddy north of the border will approve his extradition if it is tainted by torture by the U.S. or one of its surrogates.

After all, friends don't let friends torture.

* * * * *

The Bush administration's failure over the years to bring to trial the vast majority of the hundreds of alleged terrorists arrested since 9/11 and to get a scant few convictions, usually after the major charges are dropped, can be attributed to combination of ineptness and prosecutorial chicanery that has made even a goodly number of conservative judges apoplectic.

But the more recent revelations of the extent of the torture regimen and the lengths that arrogant administration officials went to justify the Nazi-like interrogation techniques without giving a waterboard about the consequences have had a welcome chilling effect on a tribunal system run amok.

The irony is that Al-Qahtani, Khadr