'Sexy' Terror Cases in 2008?

Given the way in which the administration moved Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other high-profile prisoners from CIA 'black sites' to Guantanamo-- partly as a way to sell the Military Commissions Act (aka- the Kangaroo Court and Torture Bill of 2006)-- right before the '06 elections... rumblings like this shouldn't be surprising. But they should be alarming-

Politically motivated officials at the Pentagon have pushed for convictions of high-profile detainees ahead of the 2008 elections, the former lead prosecutor for terrorism trials at Guantanamo Bay said last night, adding that the pressure played a part in his decision to resign earlier this month.

Senior defense officials discussed in a September 2006 meeting the "strategic political value" of putting some prominent detainees on trial, said Air Force Col. Morris Davis. He said that he felt pressure to pursue cases that were deemed "sexy" over those that prosecutors believed were the most solid or were ready to go...

..."There was a big concern that the election of 2008 is coming up," Davis said. "People wanted to get the cases going. There was a rush to get high-interest cases into court at the expense of openness."

Hat tip to Mark Kleiman, who notes that "the pressure came from a general, not directly from a civilian political appointee. Turning the career civil service and the uniformed military into partisan weapons is among the worst sins of the current junta."

It was Karl Rove's view that everyone and every agency was political, and that the job of everyone-- be it a military general, a Justice Department staffer, or the Secretary of Agriculture-- was to get Republicans elected. This began blowing up in their face last year, but his blueprint continues in his absence. As we saw in the U.S. Attorney scandal, it only fails when it is spotlighted and scrutinized.

So I am with Mr. Kleiman on this... hearings, please.