Today’s Headlines and Commentary

Let’s begin with more Hamdan news. For those of you living in a cave or not paying attention to anything other than the presidential debate (which mysteriously ignored the question of whether material support is a cognizable charge in a military commission): the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C Circuit yesterday overturned Salim Hamdan’s material support conviction. Here are Charlie Savage of the New York Times, Josh Gerstein of Politico, Carol Cratty of CNN, Del Quentin Wilber and Ernesto Londono of the Washington Post on the news. And here is Andrew Cohen of the Atlantic:

Somewhere in his native Yemen, Salim Ahmed Hamdan is smiling. For the second time in six years, the former driver and bodyguard of Osama Bin Laden has seen his legal rights vindicated by American high courts. This remarkable winning streak hasn't occurred because Hamdan is a paragon of virtue or the innocent victim of circumstance. It has occurred instead, over the course of two administrations, because executive branch officials stubbornly sought to manipulate the rule of law to ensure the result they wanted. They lost more than he won.

Meanwhile, David Hicks, the Australian former Guantanamo detainee who was also convicted of providing material support for terrorism in a military commission, wants to appeal his conviction after the Hamdan decision, says Hamish Fitzsimmons of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Developments in our favorite ongoing military commission case continue: Wells is hard at work reporting from Ft. Meade, and here are Richard A. Serrano of the Los Angeles Times, and of course, the estimable Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald on the third day of the pretrial hearing in the 9/11 case. Meanwhile, Jane Sutton of Reuters tells us about the government’s decision to classify a Guantanamo Bay prisoner’s “top-secret” note about LeBron James.

Just in case you haven’t already been beaten over the head with this: Here is the Associated Press on the Libya question that came up during yesterday’s debate.

BBC News tells us about a UN report “warn[ing] of the increasing risk of foreign Islamist militants radicalising the conflict” in Syria.

A CIA officer was among the two Americans killed in the latest insider attack in Afghanistan, according to the Associated Press.

Spencer Ackerman of Wired’s Danger Room sits down with Mark Bowden, author of a new book about the Osama bin Laden raid, entitled “The Finish,” to discuss the other options the Obama administration was exploring before deciding to send the SEALs in.

Who is the Pakistani Taliban, you ask? Ben Brumfield of CNN has the answer.

Who counts as al-Qaeda, you also ask? Max Fisher of the Post has the answer.

Who is Zmarak Yousefzai, you also ask? Well, he’s a practicing attorney in Washington DC who was born and raised in the FATA and who believes “drones may be a necessary evil”---and says as much in an article on Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel blog.

And how should you respond the next time someone tells you that no Republican can win the presidency without Ohio or that no president has ever been reelected with an economy this bad? You should cite this list---memorized if possible: today’s Moment of Presidential Electoral History Zen.

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