Missing The Big Story I

Andrew Cohen switches on the red siren:

You wouldn’t know it from Wednesday morning’s media coverage, but the Senate’s passage Tuesday evening of a measure to allow Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainees into the United States for trial marks a watershed in the history of terror law since September 11, 2001. It is one of the most productive developments in the sorry history of the prisoners since then-President George W. Bush authorized military commissions in November, 2001. [...] It is no coincidence that Congress acted Tuesday just hours after the Supreme Court announced it would hear yet another case involving the detaineesthis time one challenging the government’s ability to preclude the release of ethnic Chinese prisoners.

Daphne Eviatar was all over the story. She notes, among many things, that there is still a fight over those specifically involved in 9/11:

The administration has promised to make its final decision on where to try the 9/11 suspects by Nov. 16. Fearing that the administration is inching toward bringing them to New York City or the Washington, D.C., area, opponents of trying high-level terrorists in U.S. federal courts are stepping up their efforts to keep the five men out of the United States for any purpose. On Oct. 9, Sen. Lindsey Graham said he’d attached an amendment to an appropriations bill that would prohibit the Obama administration from spending money on prosecuting and trying these five alleged terrorists in U.S. civilian federal courts. [...] The bill, H.R.2847, is pending in the Senate as an amendment to an appropriations bill.