Between Iraq and a hard place

Joe Wilson, Abu Ghraib, CIA renditions, secret prisons, and now almost daily revelations about warrantless NSA surveillance must be taking a toll on the Bush administration. It's surprising more cabinet members haven't jumped ship, as happens normally, or just flat cracked up. It can't be the government salary keeping them around.

Another rogue wave was sent toward the Bush poop deck today. Jose Padilla's legal team wants their case taken to the Supreme Court not just to clear their client, but to clarify Bush's wartime powers. In their brief they mentioned--yep, you probably guessed it--the NSA spy story.

I don't know if Padilla was caught using the NSA program, but keep in mind he was unquestionably an al-Qaeda sympathiser and had been to training camps. Yet soon he might become a cause celebre for civil rights. Ironic, eh?

Actually, I'm in favor of taking this case to the Supremes for a different reason. Bush won't be in office forever, and God help us if Hillary becomes president and has this precedent in place with Bill sitting in the same building. It's going to be hard to define an end to the war on terror.

But it will be important and certainly interesting to see how this Padilla case plays out. If the Supremes rule that the administration can't transfer him to federal custody it would seem the government will be between a rock and a hard place. Their only option short of releasing Padilla would be to charge him with the dirty bomb plot, which would require calling star witnesses KSM and Zubaydah out of their secret prison cells to testify.

The alternative of releasing Padilla would be a PR nightmare because it would be seen as an admission he was held in a brig for three years for absolutely no reason.

Now, who said government jobs were easy? Stress balls for everyone!

MORE 12/28

Drudge is splashing this update, which appears to be a backdoor counter-attack by the administration. It certainly looks like they don't want the scenario above to unfold, doesn't it?

MORE 12/29

The WaPo lays it out for us. Notice the government's response to why they are charging Padilla with a lesser crime, "there is nothing remotely sinister about the government's effort to pursue criminal charges that minimize evidentiary complications,". The 'evidentiary complication' here is KSM.

Let me give the government the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps there are no sinister reasons for the aversion of bringing KSM here other than the obvious ones. And, holding Padilla for three years as an enemy combatant might not be an abuse of the policy because he'll certainly go to jail for life anyway, and the dirty bomb threat was certainly directed toward home turf and was genuine.

OK, plausible, but I'm still wondering why we can't bring the mastermind of 9/11 onto our soil for a trial. Perhaps we will one day?

MORE 12/31

The AP is also wondering why more Bushies haven't "jumped ship". As usual David Gergen is johnny-on-the-spot with an explanation.

THE SCOTUS WEIGHS IN 1/4/06

The Supremes have ruled the government CAN transfer Jose Padilla to federal custody from military custody. The judges said they would review the presidential powers appeal 'in due course'.

This appears to mean that material witnesses KSM and Zubaydah will remain in their secret CIA prisons indefinitely, while Padilla may soon be joining Yousef in the Supermax facility in Colorado.