A telling apology was published in today's Washington Post. It was written by the Deputy Assistance Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, a man named Cully Stimson, who was attempting to put out a fire he started several days before when he criticized lawyers that were representing the detainees in Guantanamo Bay. He went so far as to suggest that the clients of the law firms they worked for consider changing firms.
Assuming that we believe that the availability of good defense counsel is a cornerstone of the American legal system, what are we to make of Mr. Stimson's comments? Was he speaking off the cuff or was he made to float an idea in the press to see what the reaction would be? The latter is not an unusual tactic. Mr. Stimson is a low ranking official and can be sacrificed if need be.
The reaction does not seem to be very positive, which explains his apology. But for our purposes the more pertinent question is, what exactly did he do wrong? When an executive official "goes public" and attempts to lessen the independence of the justice system by threatening (or attempting to threaten) participants in the process, the line separating exective and judicial powers is blurred. A judiciary controlled by the executive cannot serve the function it is meant to within the system of checks and balances. A too-powerful executive is an almost certain result.
Of course the silver lining may be that this attempt failed, demonstrating that the executive lacks the ability to actually intimidate the judiciary. That's part of the game as well.
