"Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor who served as assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, hopes we might finally be getting a real debate. Though he has criticized some of the legal reasoning behind the Bush administration's terror policies, he says the animus against President Bush has corrupted our public discourse by making the issue the character of the good men and women trying to protect us rather than the enemy they were trying to stop.
Mr. Goldsmith notes that Mr. Obama is in a position to end the acrimony and strike a prudent way forward. "The single best thing about the election of Obama," he says, "may be that we now have a chance to view the terror threat without the distorting lens of Bush hatred."
That statement is a huge indictment of American political discourse, in and of itself. Meanwhile, you could ask "What would the Europeans do?" - but the answer would surprise you, and doesn't make good fodder for the usual EmperorChimpyHitler crowd. Which may be why you hadn't heard about that high profile case here. Illuminating, though.
Boston Review has a trio of articles offering different perspectives and options for the way forward. Taking fewer prisoners would seem to be one logical outcome to expect, but the articles are more concerned with the existing population of jihadi freakazoids - some of which have already been found or killed on other battlefields or terrorist incidents after their release.
A series of OJ-type trial farces, followed by release on American soil, may well wind up giving the left one of those "careful what you wish for" moments. That would, of course, be exactly what many of them do wish for... but it would certainly make a lot of people unhappy outside of true believer circles.