Gitmo Lawyers Plus New York Times Conflict of Interest = Delicious Crazy

Possible Holy Grail of See-Dubya stories broken by Ed Whelan at NRO's Bench Memos blog:

Eugene R. Fidell is a recognized expert in military law and a prominent critic of President Bush’s policies on detention of enemy combatants. Among other things, he has been actively engaged in the Boumediene case that was argued just last week in the Supreme Court. At the D.C. Circuit level, he submitted an amicus brief in the case in support of Guantanamo detainees. ... He also submitted an amicus brief in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, decided last year by the Supreme Court.

Oh, Fidell has one other distinction of note: He is the husband of New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse.

I honestly think that's worse than hiring Elspeth Reeve to fact-check Scott Beauchamp's Iraq dispatches. At least with fact-checking, Reeve theoretically had an incentive to make sure her husband's facts were accurate. Here Greenhouse is free to gush about her husband and the noble, noble efforts of the Gitmo Lawyers. (JYB tailwag: Patterico)

Speaking of which, I let a major event go by the other day in my coverage of this issue.

Debra Burlingame, sister of murdered Sept.11 pilot "Chic" Burlingame, is a name you'll recognize if you're familiar with the JYB's Gitmo Lawyers chronicles. She's played a very important role in all this: Back in January DoD's lawyer Cully Stimson first raised the issue that many of the supposedly "pro bono" Gitmo lawyers weren't that "pro bono" at all. He was forced to resign for that assertion.

Well, Debra Burlingame tracked down the money coming in and proved Cully Stimson was right, and then some. I've cited her March WSJ op-ed about the subject numerous times in these electronic pages, and wondered whether she would ever follow up on those initial bombshells. (I've found a few more of my own as well--put "Gitmo Lawyers" into the search box over there on the left, go pour yourself a cup of coffee while it scans the blog archive, and you'll have more than you can read comfortably at one sitting when you come back.)

Now Burlingame's followed up. This week she testified before Congress, expanding on the subjects in her op-ed. And like a moron, I suddenly discover that Debra Burlingame has a blog at 9/11 Families For A Safe And Strong America. D'oh! And her full testimony is there.

I haven't even had a chance to read this yet (even though Bryan was kind enough to send along an advance copy of her testimony when he linked to the CSPAN coverage) but I'm going to do so ASAP. I'd really recommend you do, too. And here's why:

One of the fairly shocking things Burlingame uncovered was the existence of a crisis PR program designed to demonize Guantanamo and rehabilitate the image of the detainees, funded by the Kuwaiti government. Nothing illegal, but still: wouldn't you want to know where this is coming from?

The existence of a PR campaign on behalf of the Gitmo detainees doesn't mean that everything is peachy keen there, or that abuses of rights never take place. It also doesn't mean the lawyers defending the detainees are bad people. But it's just one of those things, like figuring out that Linda Greenhouse's husband is one of the Gitmo lawyers, that at the very least provides some crucial context about events there and the coverage they receive.

(A final note to any talk radio producers/magazine editors who happen by this post (wishful thinking, I know): have you considered booking Cully Stimson to talk about these events? He's with the Heritage Foundation now, and I'd sure like to hear what he has to say about Burlingame's vindication of his statements back in January--for which he hasn't gotten his job back, by the way. And for which the San Francisco bar association tried to have him disbarred.)