I have outrage fatigue

After being bruised and battered through the last 7 years of constitutional atrocities, I cannot even muster more than a defeated shrug at the news that the Gitmo "trials" being held by military commission are nothing more than preordained shams. Raise your hand if you're surprised.

The only thing that surprised me was that this news was reported not by the attorneys attempting to represent Gitmo detainees in their trials, or some other public advocacy group, by the former chief prosecutor in those trials:

"I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process," Davis continued. "At which point, [Haynes's] eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can't have acquittals, we've got to have convictions.'"

Yes, god forbid anyone find out that some of the people you've been holding for over six years aren't guilty. But what should really scare you is that statement was made by the person now overseeing both the prosecution AND the defense in those tribunal proceedings. The person running the defense doesn't believe acquittals are permissible.

Normally I would be full of vim and vinegar and ready to rail at the world after a story like this, but I just can't muster the energy. I think I and everyone else are doing the same thing: waiting the eleven months it will take to get this administration out of office and then hope the next guy or girl scraps the whole practice and replaces it with one that's actually constitutional and fair. In the meantime, all I can do is hope and wait, and try to remember a time when I didn't constantly assume the worst about our administration.