To be fair

John Ashcroft really fuckin' hates Busch Gardens:

“We take the whole family and have a blast,” Mr. Hassoun said. “We go to, uh, our Busch Gardens, you know ... You won’t regret it. Money-back guarantee.”

Mr. Padilla, laughing, suggested that they not discuss the matter over the phone.

“Why?” Mr. Hassoun said. “We’re going to Busch Gardens. What’s the big deal!”

...

Tens of thousands of conversations were recorded. Some 230 phone calls form the core of the government’s case, including 21 that make reference to Mr. Padilla, prosecutors said. But Mr. Padilla’s voice is heard on only seven calls. And on those seven, which The Times obtained from a participant in the case, Mr. Padilla does not discuss violent plots.

But this is not the version of Mr. Padilla — Al Qaeda associate and would-be bomber — that John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, unveiled in 2002 when he interrupted a trip to Moscow to trumpet Mr. Padilla’s capture.

Golly, John Ashcroft overplay his hand -- WHO WOULDA THUNK IT?

But as I said Ashcroft apparently hates amusement parks more than he hates 'dirty dancing'.

Meanwhile the government, under the master-guidance of John "Torture" Yoo claims to have obtained inadmissible confessions from Padilla, AN AMERICAN CITIZEN, when he had no counsel and was quite plainly tortured. And he wasn't alone, the bulk of the case against Padilla (American Citizen) was built upon torture:

In December 2005, Mr. Mohamed was referred to the military commission in Guantánamo on accusations that he conspired with Mr. Padilla on the dirty bomb plot. It was little noticed at the time.

But accusations against Mr. Padilla that are nowhere to be found in the indictment against him filled the pages of Mr. Mohamed’s charging sheet, with Mr. Padilla repeatedly identified by name. The sheet referred to the two men meeting in Pakistan after Sept. 11, 2001, studying how to build an improvised dirty bomb, discussing the feasibility of a dirty bomb attack with Al Qaeda officials and agreeing to undertake the mission to blow up buildings.

Mr. Mohamed’s lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, said that these charges were based on a forced confession by Mr. Mohamed, who, he said, was tortured overseas into admitting to a story that was fed to him. “Binyam was told all along that his job was to be a witness against Padilla, Abu Zubaydah and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed,” Mr. Stafford Smith said, adding that his client “has no conscience knowledge that he ever met” Mr. Padilla.

Meanwhile, the message from the Bush Administration has been clear. Stay the fuck out of Busch Gardens.

All of which brings us to an earlier story about the torture of Jose Padilla (have I mentioned he's an American Citizen?) that Digby notices:

Indeed, there are even some within the government who think it might be best if Padilla were declared incompetent and sent to a psychiatric prison facility. As one high-ranking official put it, "the objective of the government always has been to incapacitate this person."

Oh great, the American Anti-Soviet Talking Point of the Cold War, brought to life here in 'Murica by the Bush Defenestration.