As David's been discussing, Charles Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, says there should be a boycott of law firms defending Gitmo detainees. Too bad one of those firms, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison is representing Scooter Libby in his trial that starts Monday.

Guess Scooter won't be honoring the boycott.

The Pentagon is disavowing the comments made by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Stimson, saying they don't represent the views of the Department of Defense or the thinking of its leadership.

I've been digging a little deeper into the incendiary comments made in a radio interview this week by Charles Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, who suggested that corporations should consider boycotting law firms representing the detainees at Guantanamo. Some of those law firms are among the nation's largest and most respected firms.

In an earlier post I noted the odd convergence of events. On Thursday, Stimson called out defense attorneys during an interview on Federal News radio. On Friday, an unnamed senior administration official showed up in a WSJ op-ed piece written by Robert Pollock essentially saying the same thing about a boycott that Stimson had said the day before. And all of this was apparently prompted, if that's the right word, by a FOIA request from conservative talk radio host Monica Crowley for the names of all the lawyers and law firms representing detainees.

In response, I heard from TPM Reader WS, who works for a St. Louis television station and says he was invited by the Department of Defense to fly down to Gitmo last month for a tour of the detainee facilities. In a phone interview, WS told me that Stimson, Pollock and representatives of Federal News radio were all with him on the trip to Gitmo. Also in attendance were a Department of Defense lawyer and a Marine Corps press flack. While Crowley has visited Gitmo recently, according to her website, she was not on this particular trip, according to WS.

The group flew to Gitmo from Washington, D.C., on December 20, aboard a government-owned Gulfstream jet, according to WS. The tour lasted 6-7 hours, he said, and the group returned the same day. No cameras or other recording equipment was allowed. Stimson served essentially as a tour guide for the media representatives, on a trip intended to emphasize that the detainees are well-treated and well-cared for. Stimson told WS that he was trying to schedule at least one similar media tour to Gitmo each month.

WS says they were shown detainees, coming within 20 feet of detainees who were in a fenced exercise area, and that they appeared to be in good condition. Stimson claimed that the detainees received better treatment than if they were treated as prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, and that the new prison facilities at Gitmo were modeled after prisons in Michigan and Indiana, according to WS. Stimson touted the presence of an office of the International Red Cross on-site, WS says.

Stimson also complained that detainees were taking advantage of visits by their lawyers to convey information about their treatment at Gitmo with the intention of making Gitmo look bad, but WS said Stimson made no other mention of detainee lawyers and did not make any mention of a boycott.

Incidentally, WS has no idea why he in particular was invited on the trip, but he couldn't resist the chance to go to Cuba. He has no plans to air an account of his trip.

Nothing like a little coordination between the Pentagon and the right wing noise machine.

The suggestion by Charles D. Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, that corporations should consider boycotting law firms who are doing pro bono work representing detainees at Gitmo, came after he received a FOIA request from conservative radio host and former Nixon groupie Monica Crowley seeking a list of all the lawyers and law firms representing detainees.

Later, during a radio interview (not with Crowley), Stimson--who was a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., specializing in felony domestic violence and child abuse cases before going to the Pentagon to oversee the detainee program--read from the list produced to Crowley and indicated that he expected the names of the lawyers and law firms to be a big story in coming days:

“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 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.”

For her part, Crowley made a recent trip to Guantanamo and on her radio show is marking the fifth anniversary of the detainee facility there: "We're there, we're fair, and we're not going anywhere!"

As the New York Times noted, the fifth anniversary of the Gitmo prison was also the peg for a Robert Pollock op-ed in Friday's Wall Street Journal which cited the list and attributed this quote to an unnamed “senior U.S. official": “Corporate C.E.O.’s seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers and representing terrorists.”

A series of completely unconnected random events, I'm sure.

Contemptible:

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.

Stimson is himself a lawyer, sad to say. Here's the money quote:

I think, quite honestly, when corporate C.E.O.’s see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those C.E.O.’s 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.

The Administration has already done virtually everything possible to deny detainees any hope of justice. Encouraging boycotts of the law firms representing detainees is an effort to close off any last chance that the detainees will be treated in accordance with Anglo-American legal standards.

Each of us will mark our own low point of the Bush presidency. This is on my short list.

If you haven't seen it already, check out Murray Waas' preview of the upcoming trial of Scooter Libby, which will likely open a window on the Imperial Vice Presidency.

The top FBI official for San Diego, on the firing of U.S. Attorney Carol Lam: "I guarantee politics is involved."

It's just stunning to have a FBI agent blast the Department of Justice and the White House like this.

Lam prosecuted the Duke Cunningham case and is in charge of other high-profile public corruption cases involving Republicans.

There's our first hint of what happening.

From the NYT: "A recent series of American raids against Iranians in Iraq was authorized under an order that President Bush decided to issue several months ago to undertake a broad military offensive against Iranian operatives in the country, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday."

Harvard lecturer and former TPMCafe America Abroad blogger Juliette Kayyem appointed Massachusetts Director of Homeleand Security by new Gov. Deval Patrick.

The Senate as it stands now: seven Republicans against escalation, nine more with their toe in the water.

So Joe Lieberman, now that he's been reelected, doesn't think it's worth pursuing the administration's disastrous handling of Katrina.

What do Louisiana and Gulf Coast lawmakers think about it? the '08 hopefuls? Lieberman's Senate colleagues? We've been calling around to get reactions, and we got our first: Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA).

New CNN poll: Sixty-six percent against escalation; on question of whom Americans have confidence in when it comes to handling Iraq, Congressional Dems hold 17-point edge over Bush.

Over at TPMmuckraker, Paul has been following the nasty, brutish (and short) Senate battle over earmark reform. Democrats had barely taken down their election-season "Ethics Reform" banners before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) went bare-knuckled against a bipartisan push to make public the sponsors of billions in "earmarked" expenditures.

Reid's proposal would have only required sponsors of earmarks for state and local projects -- a new tennis court, an updated rec center -- to identify themselves. Of course, those are just the earmarks that lawmakers already take credit for -- it's part of how they stay in office. And though he sure did try, Reid couldn't corral his fellow senators to help his plan succeed.

Let's put this in context. This was never an argument about what should be reported, this was an argument over what lawmakers tell the public. In the Senate (and the House) there are, I guarantee, meticulously detailed records of who asked for which earmarks, which were granted, and how much they were worth. Earmarks -- pork, if one's feeling uncharitable -- are the most basic unit of political favors, and they aren't doled out without the expectation that at some point, the favor will be returned. With some 14,000 such favors being passed out each year, the granters would be foolish not to keep lists somewhere.

If it's so important to the lawmakers, isn't it important to the voters also?

Update: Whoops. While I was writing this, a chagrined Reid acceded to the will of the majority. With a few tweaks, he's withdrawing his objections to the tougher earmark reform rule.

Rough stuff: Rep. Doolittle (R-CA) fires wife from kickback job.

Update: More fun with Doolittle here.

Sec Def Gates: Iraq is four wars in one.

Is the whole 'surge' plan a set up? Check out this nugget that Sullivan found in John Burns' latest piece.

Not what they were looking for apparently. This just out from the San Diego Union-Tribune ...

The Bush administration has quietly asked San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, best known for her high-profile prosecutions of politicians and corporate executives, to resign her post, a law enforcement official said.

Lam, a Bush appointee who took the helm in 2002, was targeted because of job performance issues – in particular that she failed to make smuggling and gun cases a top priority, said the official, who declined to be identified because Lam has yet to step down.

Lam has had high-profile successes during her tenure, such as the Randy “Duke” Cunningham bribery case – but she alienated herself from bosses at the Justice Department because she is outspoken and independent, said local lawyers familiar with her policies.

We'll have more on this.

Update: Some context here.

Flynt Leverett: The Bush speech was about Iran, not Iraq.

Today's Must Read: the president rolls out The New Way Forward at that most reliable of backdrops, an army base, but... the old magic is gone.