Due Process?

It's nice to know that the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs doesn't believe in the presumption of innocence or due process -

Charles "Cully" Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, said in a radio interview last week that companies might want to consider taking their business to firms that do not represent suspected terrorists.

...

Stimson on Thursday told Federal News Radio, a local commercial station that covers the government, that he found it "shocking" that lawyers at many of the nation's top law firms represent detainees.

Stimson listed the names of more than a dozen major firms he suggested should be boycotted.

"And I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms," Stimson said.

Asked who might be paying the law firms to represent Guantanamo detainees, Stimson hinted at wrongdoing.

"It's not clear, is it? Some will maintain that they're doing it out of the goodness of their heart -- that they're doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are," he said. "Others are receiving monies from who knows where and I'd be curious to have them explain that."

So not only should the detainees not be represented, their lawyers are on the take from Al Qaeda? Is that what he's saying?

Of course, the pentagon has disavowed Stimson's statements, but call me cycnical, it sounds like a case of having their cake and eating it too.