The Things We Learn on Friday

It's a long-standing practice that politicians, especially presidents, will release news that they'd rather not discuss on Friday night. Barack Obama, no fool, has figured that one out. So what did we learn yesterday?

The Obama administration is moving toward reviving the military commission system for prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, which was a target of critics during the Bush administration, including Mr. Obama himself.

Officials said the first public moves could come as soon as next week, perhaps in filings to military judges at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, outlining an administration plan to amend the Bush administration’s system to provide more legal protections for terrorism suspects.

Continuing the military commissions in any form would probably prompt sharp criticism from human rights groups as well as some of Mr. Obama’s political allies because the troubled system became an emblem of the effort to use Guantánamo to avoid the American legal system.

So why would sainted Obama re-think his position about something that he repeatedly excoriated out on the hustings?

Officials who work on the Guantánamo issue say administration lawyers have become concerned that they would face significant obstacles to trying some terrorism suspects in federal courts. Judges might make it difficult to prosecute detainees who were subjected to brutal treatment or for prosecutors to use hearsay evidence gathered by intelligence agencies.

Imagine that. Bet they didn't even read some of these dudes the Miranda warning.

Obama administration officials — and Mr. Obama himself — have said in the past that they were not ruling out prosecutions in the military commission system. But senior officials have emphasized that they prefer to prosecute terrorism suspects in existing American courts. When President Obama suspended Guantánamo cases after his inauguration on Jan. 20, many participants said the military commission system appeared dead.

But in recent days a variety of officials involved in the deliberations say that after administration lawyers examined many of the cases, the mood shifted toward using military commissions to prosecute some detainees, perhaps including those charged with coordinating the Sept. 11 attacks.

“The more they look at it,” said one official, “the more commissions don’t look as bad as they did on Jan. 20.”

Of course they don't look that bad. The population at Gitmo includes a lot of very dangerous people and our experience is that if we simply let these folks go, they simply return to the battle. Now that Obama and his team owns the situation, they've had to realize that. Not that they want to admit it, though:

Several officials insisted on anonymity because the administration has directed that no one publicly discuss the deliberations.

That's okay, kids. I won't tell anyone. Meanwhile, one cheer for Obama for doing what they have to do. I'll reserve the full cheer until they admit that they were full of crap. But that's not going to happen any time soon, if ever.