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Opinion: Stimson’s long goodbye

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Too late to win the Bush administration any PR points, the Pentagon has parted company with the official who besmirched lawyers for representing detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Charles D. Stimson, deputy assistant secretary for detainee affairs (an ominously permanent-sounding title), quit a nearly a month after telling a radio interviewer that fancy law firms that had agreed to defend the detainess might lose corporate clients once it was known that they had defended ‘terrorists’ -- not ‘accused terrorists’ or ‘suspected terrorists.’

Stimson apologized for his remarks, which also included a nasty insinuation that some of the the lawyers might be receiving money from ‘who knows where.’ It was left to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, no bleeding-heart liberal, to remind Americans that having ‘good lawyers representing the detainees is the best way to ensure that justice is done in these cases.

Every administration has its blabbermouths and cranks, but Stimson’s comments got such play precisely because they seemed to come from the administration’s war-on-terror playbook. Was that why he wasn’t asked to resign immediately?

President Bush has apologized for his ‘Bring it on!’ rhetoric and for mistakes in Iraq. He should be equally emphatic in the future about the fact that, along with some certifiably bad actors, innocents have been caught in the post-Sept. 11 dragnet. Acknowledging as much would enhance, not undermine, the administration’s credibility.

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