McCain is trying to use today's split Guantanamo verdict--which the traditional media immediately characterized as a "victory" for the Bush administration--to open up a new line of attack on Obama, and Mark Halperin is gleefully pushing the story at the top of his site.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who was essentially Osama Bin Laden's chauffeur, was acquitted of the ludicrous charge of being a co-conspirator in the 9/11 attacks. But he was convicted on five counts of something called "material support to terrorism," a vague crime that was not even written into the law books until Hamdan had been in US custody for five years.
McCain's attack on Obama is essentially the same attack we saw on John Kerry and that we've seen over and over again since 2001, and even further back: that Democrats are weak on national security, that we care more about civil rights than about protecting people from violent crimes, that we would rather let terrorists run free than punish them for their crimes.
Here are the key quotes from McCain's statement:
I welcome today’s guilty verdict in the first trial held under the Military Commissions Act (MCA).
Unlike Senator Obama who voted against the MCA and favors giving Al Qaeda terrorists direct access to U.S. civilian courts to contest their detention, I recognize that we cannot treat dangerous terrorists captured on the battlefield as we would common criminals.
In my opinion, this is an attack that McCain will use again, and one that should not go unanswered. But it does present a tricky situation for Obama. Hopefully Barack will do the right thing and remind voters that when Bush and McCain could have been going after Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, they decided to invade a country that had no role in 9/11.
UPDATE:
In case Bill Burton is reading, I think this would be a great response statement:
7 years after the tragedy of 9/11, the best Bush and McCain can do when it comes to bringing those responsible for the attacks to justice is to convict Bin Laden's driver. And when John McCain and George Bush should have been focused on finding Bin Laden in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, they diverted America's resources and invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.
(Thanks to Hercegovac in the comments).