Miniter's Notebook

Here’s a sample:

What drives America’s highest-flying legal eagles to soar tirelessly and for free on behalf of suspected terrorists? While some attorneys seem driven by a leftish quest for "social justice," others seem intoxicated by a volatile blend of sentimentalism and naiveté.

Associate Sarah Havens of Allen & Overy’s New York office flew to Guantanamo bearing gifts for her clients. (The British firm can expect $1.22 billion in revenues, and includes Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase among its 1,800 lawyers’ clients.) "Snickers were a big hit," she said in last Feb. 18’s New York Lawyer. Her colleague, Sarah Fels, sounded downright weepy as she headed home: "The hard part was to leave and know they were going back into captivity."

Covington & Burling’s Marc Falkoff helps defend 13 Yemeni bystanders — as he reportedly called them in the April 7 Miami Herald — who were arrested in the wrong place in Pakistan and handed to U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Falkoff considers these men harmless.

"I would invite any one of them to sleep over at my apartment," Falkoff said. "None of these guys are terrorists. None of these guys is a danger to the United States."

The U.S. military’s "detention of enemy combatants is not criminal in nature," says Pentagon press officer Flex Plexico, "but to prevent them from continuing to fight against the United States in the War on Terrorism...as well as to gather intelligence to thwart further terrorist assaults."

Falkoff might ponder this declassified Pentagon description of one of his potential houseguests: "A detainee who admits to being one of (Osama bin Laden’s) primary drivers and bodyguards had in his possession surface to air missiles when captured."