Hush money

The latest Bushco strategy appears to be to spend its way away from any need to defend its actions:

The U.S. government has agreed to pay $300,000 (U.S.) to an Egyptian man who was detained for nearly a year following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but was never linked to terrorism, his lawyer said.

The settlement was filed in Brooklyn federal court on Monday, said lawyer Haeyoung Yoon, who represents Ehab Elmaghraby. She said she believed it was the first settlement involving the claims of people detained after Sept. 11.

Mr. Elmaghraby said he was shackled, shoved into walls, punched and called a terrorist at the facility. Ms. Yoon said he was subjected to repetitive strip searches and a correction officer penetrated his anal cavity with a flashlight.

While in custody, Mr. Elmaghraby's thyroid condition was misdiagnosed as asthma, worsening it, Ms. Yoon said. He wanted to continue with the lawsuit but settled because of his mounting medical costs, she said...

A federal judge in September, 2005, rejected a claim by Mr. Ashcroft that the lawsuit should be dismissed partly because the threat of foreign terrorism exempts the government from following rules made in peacetime.

Needless to say, the Justice Department wasn't commenting on the settlement, and one presumes that the administration will generally avoid saying much. But the settlement makes clear that Bushco will go to great lengths to avoid either formally admitting fault or having its actions held up to judicial scrutiny. And the more money gets thrown away trying to compensate the victims of the administration's abuses, the more likely Bushco (or at least its Congressional allies) becomes to face accountability at the ballot box instead.