[Big Orange was down, so obviously something was up. So, I checked the wires...]

Really, who cares? I mean, I care because I'm going to need a mop and a bucket to clean up the spooge after the inevitable winger circlejerk, but really, who cares? Compared to the damage that Bush has done to our judicial system, the rule of law, and the Constitution, this pissant conviction is nothing.

I mean, after what Bush did, it would take a miracle if Padilla weren't convicted, ya know? From the Christian Science Monitor:

A three-part Monitor series reveals the troubling ways in which the administration shifted charges against Mr. Padilla, tried to avoid judicial review of his case, and likely damaged his mental health by using extreme isolation to extract information from him.

At its root, US treatment of Padilla shows the inclination to do anything to break the silence of a suspected terrorist, even it means violating such basic citizen rights as protection against self-incrimination and harsh interrogation, as well as the right to a trial.

In short, the US military used terror – Padilla had little or no human contact for more than three years – to fight terror.

The odd trajectory of this case also shows the bob-and-weave tactics used by the administration to avoid constitutional challenges to the way it handles terror suspects.

At first, Padilla's rights were protected because he was detained under the criminal-justice system. But then he was labeled an enemy combatant and put under military control, like noncitizen detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. When the courts appeared close to challenging his status, the Bush administration switched him back to a criminal court and lessened the charges to one of merely supporting Al Qaeda.

Guilty or not, Padilla deserves the same rule of law that any US citizen can expect. America can't win a global war to defend its values by stepping on them. As Army Capt. Ian Fishback wrote to Sen. John McCain after witnessing US military abuses in Afghanistan: "I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is America."

I'm a hell of a lot more afraid of the torture-loving pervs and Conservative authoritarians infesting the executive branch than I am of Padilla.

NOTE I wonder how long it will take for Bush to use the Padilla case as an excuse to grab yet more power? I give it 24 hours, maximum.

UPDATE What Glenn said:

To this day, many people, including myself, cite the Padilla case as the ultimate wake-up call to the true character, the genuine soul, of the Bush administration. Imprisoning a U.S. citizen, on U.S. soil, with no charges of any kind, and then keeping him for years completely incommunicado, is just one of those lines which many people believed would never be crossed in America.

That this bright line was crossed, and crossed so explicitly and with so little controversy, was an unmistakable sign of just how much of our national character was being eroded, just how limitless was the attack on our basic constitutional framework, just how profoundly our political press was failing. Today's verdict offers yet more evidence of just how unnecessary -- on top of illegal, unconstitutional and destructive -- the administration's behavior here was.