Early Edition

(Well, it's early for me)

Double-take blast-from-past headline du jour: "Bush Pushes for New U.N. Resolution on Iraq" (WashPost)

Or, what? we'll invade again?

Great NYT Editorial on the recent job growth figures, which concludes:

It's certain that Mr. Bush will continue to credit his tax cuts for the comeback. These are the same cuts, you may recall, that were first designed as a means of "giving back" part of the mounting surplus to the public. Then, as the surplus evaporated, they were relabeled a stimulus plan. Now, with no surplus and no slump — and with looming deficits a threat to long-term growth — it's hard to think of what Mr. Bush can call his tax cuts to justify their renewal. The administration could go with truth in advertising, and simply relabel them a handout to wealthy families at a time of war and deficits.

Interesting article in today's WashPost about Padilla's lawyer, Donna Newman, and the extralegal constrainsts she's trying to operate under.

Several prominent legal critics of the administration agree that there is a legal precedent for holding U.S. citizens as prisoners in wartime -- not least a war on terror. But they said the executive branch must concede a brake on its powers.

"My view is that the government ought to be able to hold someone as an enemy combatant for the course of the conflict with al Qaeda," said David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center and author of "Enemy Aliens," about the detention of foreign nationals during the war on terror. "But some process has to be put in place so that those who are not fighting for al Qaeda have a chance to prove it."

...

Comey, however, insisted that it could prove difficult to convict Padilla in a civilian court. The tactics needed to extract a confession from Padilla -- which include secret testimony from captured terrorists held and interrogated overseas -- would not be likely to pass muster in a civilian court.

"We deprived him of access to his counsel and questioned him in the absence of counsel," Comey said. He added later: "Criminal charges might not be an option someday."

This raises the possibility that Padilla might find himself in a legal Catch-22, too difficult to prosecute and too dangerous to release. Newman fears this future. "The indictment is missing, the trial is missing, the lawyer is missing," she said. "I just find it very hard to believe that the Supreme Court will say it's okay to throw this man into a black hole forever."

And today's NYT has a lengthy article about the recent FUBAR leading to an innocent civilian being arrested and labelled a terrorist by the FBI:

Much of the disagreement between the two countries continues to center on the fingerprints lifted from a blue plastic bag discovered near the scene of the March 11 bombing, which killed 191 people and left 2,000 injured in the deadliest terrorist attack in Europe since World War II. F.B.I. officials once maintained the prints matched those of the American lawyer, Brandon Mayfield, who was jailed for two weeks, and the F.B.I. at one point told federal prosecutors that Spanish officials were "satisfied" with their conclusion.

But in interviews this week, Spanish officials vehemently denied ever backing up that assessment, saying they had told American law enforcement officials from the start, after their own tests, that the match was negative. The Spanish officials said their American counterparts relentlessly pressed their case anyway, explaining away stark proof of a flawed link — including what the Spanish described as tell-tale forensic signs — and seemingly refusing to accept the notion that they were mistaken.

...

The Spaniards, who continued to examine the fingerprints, eventually made their own match, to an Algerian citizen, whom they then arrested.

Carlos Corrales, a commissioner of the Spanish National Police's science division, said he was also struck by the F.B.I.'s intense focus on Mr. Mayfield. "It seemed as though they had something against him," Mr. Corrales said, "and they wanted to involve us."

...

A Senate aide who also attended a Congressional briefing said there was great concern about the impact the Mayfield mistake would have. "This is going to kill prosecutors for years every time they introduce a fingerprint ID by the F.B.I.," the aide said. "The defense will be saying `is this a 100 percent match like the Mayfield case?' "

Read the whole thing for a really creepy picture of current law-enforcement practices.