It is amazing how badly the administration does not want the detainees at Gitmo to receive legal defense:

The senior Pentagon official in charge of military detainees suspected of terrorism said in an interview this week that he was dismayed that lawyers at many of the nation’s top firms were representing prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that the firms’ corporate clients should consider ending their business ties.

The comments by Charles D. Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, produced an instant torrent of anger from lawyers, legal ethics specialists and bar association officials, who said Friday that his comments were repellent and displayed an ignorance of the duties of lawyers to represent people in legal trouble.

“This is prejudicial to the administration of justice,” said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University and an authority on legal ethics. “It’s possible that lawyers willing to undertake what has been long viewed as an admirable chore will decline to do so for fear of antagonizing important clients.

“We have a senior government official suggesting that representing these people somehow compromises American interests, and he even names the firms, giving a target to corporate America.”

Mr. Stimson made his remarks in an interview on Thursday with Federal News Radio, a local Washington-based station that is aimed at an audience of government employees.

So what is so bad about these people getting good defense attorneys, especially if how they were arrested, interrogated, detained and the evidence gives the military a sound case? Apparently that isn’t the case. It appears the military knows they don’t have a good case, so it would be better if these people receive representation from the military, people they can control. Of course that is against everything American, and it appears Charles D. Stimson really doesn’t care about America.

Patrick Leahy is already on this, and it should get interesting:

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, wrote to President Bush on Friday asking him to disavow Mr. Stimson’s remarks.

I doubt Bush will respond to Leahy’s letter. After all, he is the emperor who doesn’t have to answer to anyone. Leahy won’t back down though, and he is just the man to really help knock Bush off his high horse.