a miami jury convicted american citizen jose padilla of thinking about doing something nasty to people overseas. or something along those lines. mr. padilla was dragged off a plane years ago, accused of plotting to explode a dirty bomb (don't such people wash their c4 before using?), declared an enemy combatant by president brushcut, hauled to a brig, and forced to watch all the "i love lucy" episodes forwards and backwards, dubbed into norwegian, for three years. in other words, he was tortured.

the actual conditions of padilla's confinement and interrogations were not allowed to be discussed at his trial. from many sources we can surmise that mr. padilla's govmint handling included: total isolation, intolerable loud music (the "koresh cantata"), injections of weird drugs, heating and super cooling of his cell, no sunlight, bouts of continuous interrogation, and no visits from paris hilton.

padilla was brought to trial as the supreme court edged closer to forcing the administration to release him. a ruling that "enemy combatants" was an illegal category would have closed down the fun times at gitmo.

today's papers should trumpet padilla's conviction as a triumph for bush justice. and for junior alberto, our quaint attorney general. and render these years of mistreatment perfectly legal.

so, let me tender a suggestion to senator leahy's senate committee. to improve alberto gonzales' memory and soften his attitude problem, let's give him the (perfectly legal) padilla treatment before his next visit with leahy's committee. there must be a dark dungeon somewhere in our nation's capital for rent at a modest sum. we have a number of ex-cia guys who'd volunteer time as an interrogation tag team. god knows there are enough awful cd's to serenade gonzo at extreme volume. for public information purposes we can video some of the fun and pop it on youtube. why gonzo might confess to more stuff than that rumpled sheik mohammed dope.

how the hell else are we going to get the truth from this confederation of clowns?