The confession

How satisfying -- for the families of the victims, for all of us -- if Khalid Sheik Mohammed had been convicted in open court. Instead, the hearings at Guantanamo were militarily efficient, but hardly satisfying. Rather, there's a creepiness in all of the redactions and all involved may just as well have been wearing black hoods. Of course the last thing the Bush administration wanted was a public trial in which he could have made the statement he did make (pdf), far less publicly, at Guantanamo.