LAW FROM THE CENTER

Marine Major Michael Mori, who I've told you here and here is displaying incredible courage in uncharacteristically publicly defending his Guantanomo detainee clients, is speaking up again. The Mail and Guardian (South Africa) reports:

Earlier Major Mori said that labelling the defendants as terrorists had allowed the US government to lower its standards of justice. He said the system lacked checks and balances, such as a truly independent appeal process.

'The appointing authority, who approves the charges, is the same person who gets to rule on defence motions,' he said. 'He is basically reviewing his own decisions ... it's like letting the bowler call leg before wicket."

HUH? "Call leg before wicket?" OK, whoever you are from South Africa, little lesson in Journalism 101: If you're going to blatantly misquote somebody, make sure you do so with a figure of speech that that person actually uses in his or her native country. That way, everyone in America won't catch your apparent lack of ethics. Something tells me Major Mori didn't learn how to play cricket in Quantico, Virginia, or at any other Marine training for that matter.

UPDATE 1: My further research shows that this South African story is taken verbatim from a story which the Guardian (UK) ran here. So is the Guardian guilty of blatant misquoting? I'm writing the editor to clear this up. Maybe the good Marine actually used a cricket analogy to curry favor with his Australian defendant's countrymen, but I doubt it. Stay tuned...