The curious trial of Osama bin Laden’s driver raises still more doubts about the Bush administration’s handling of terrorism-related cases. Bush personally approved the idea of sending the driver, Salim Hamdan, to trial under the controversial military commission system that gives big advantages to the prosecution. The prosecution then portrayed Hamdan as a terrorist conspirator, a ‘hardened al-Qaida member’ who should be locked away for decades. This case was put at the head of the line of commission trials, and prosecutors apparently considered their case against him to be a strong one. But the military judge and jury clearly disagreed. They found Hamdan not guilty of the conspiracy charge, and gave him such a short sentence on another charge that he could be set free in a matter of months. The judge’s sympathetic attitude towards Hamdan at the end of the proceedings hardly supports the notion of him being a dangerous killer. So it appears that the prosecutors focused on a mere underling in the al-Qaida organization. It has been a costly exercise for the American taxpayer; the case has dragged on for years, at one point making its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. […]