Rich Lowry’s NRO column revisits the oft-asked question, “why no military tribunal for Zacarias Moussaoui?” — and offers an answer (albeit a speculative one): “It seems clear,” Lowry writes, “that the Moussaoui trial is a kind of reverse show trial, a way for the Bush administration to demonstrate to the Democrats and the op-ed writers that it isn’t so dictatorial after all.”

Moussaoui — an out-of-uniform al Qaeda soldier intent on killing civilians — is an unlawful combatant under the Geneva Convention; as such, Lowry reminds us, “he has no rights whatsoever, except perhaps to be summarily executed.” To Lowry