Andy McCarthy makes the key point in response to the refusal of the judge presiding over the military commission of the man accused of bombing the USS Cole:
[Obama] is, moreover, the President of the United States and the commander-in-chief of our military forces in a time of war. These considerations, by themselves, should have been enough for the judge to indulge his request - I can't think of a single civilian court judge I ever appeared before who would not have respectfully deferred to a reasonable request for delay by the president in similar circumstances.
Obama must be given the maximum amount of latitude in deciding how best to proceed in adjudicating the cases of terrorist detained on the battlefield -- this is a matter of principle for conservatives. Still, the judge who has refused this order has only illustrated once again what has been clear for some time now: these military commissions are anything but kangaroo courts. Indeed, there are many moving parts in this system and most are immune to pressure from officials in Washington. As McCarthy points out, this is yet another "reason to think there are better ways to deal with detainees than a system that denies abundantly sensible motions - and in which Osama bin Laden's personal bodyguard, arrested in possession of missiles intended for shooting at U.S. troops, gets sentenced to a grand total of six months on a war crimes conviction (which is what happened in the first commission trial)."