Who IS this odious weasel...? Oh, a Bush appointee... Never mind...

it's been clear for a long time that the principal selection criterion for appointment to the bush administration is unwavering loyalty to bush... the second most important is an unquestioning willingness to do precisely what you're told... i suppose also being a completely odious toad is considered a lucky bonus...

"Actually you know I think the news story that you're really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, 'Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,' and you know what, it's shocking," he said [Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs].

Mr. Stimson proceeded to reel off the names of these firms, adding, "I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out."

Asked who was paying the firms, Mr. Stimson hinted of dark doings. "It's not clear, is it?" he said. "Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they're doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I'd be curious to have them explain that."

It might be only laughable that Mr. Stimson, during the interview, called Guantanamo "certainly, probably, the most transparent and open location in the world."

But it's offensive -- shocking, to use his word -- that Mr. Stimson, a lawyer, would argue that law firms are doing anything other than upholding the highest ethical traditions of the bar by taking on the most unpopular of defendants. It's shocking that he would seemingly encourage the firms' corporate clients to pressure them to drop this work. And it's shocking -- though perhaps not surprising -- that this is the person the administration has chosen to oversee detainee policy at Guantanamo.

no, not surprising at all... after all, how could such an individual possibly conceive of wanting to stop endless detention, detainee torture, and to restore basic legal rights that are supposedly the foundation of this country to those who are being deprived of them...

my question is this... how many rocks have to be turned over to get something like cully stimson to crawl out...?

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