Public Enemy No. 43,527

The government throws back another small fish.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2005, at 4:21 PM ET

Poor Jose Padilla. When the Defense Department decided to release America's last Public Enemy No. 1—Yaser Esam Hamdi—from nearly three years of bondage in a military dungeon without charges, he was shipped off to Saudi Arabia, with a firm handshake and commemorative U.S. Navy mug. The terrorist too dangerous to be tried in open court was sent home to his parents for a seriously enforced new bedtime. But Padilla—perhaps because he grew up in America, or maybe because his name could be readily stapled onto another conspiracy case—faces criminal charges and a lifetime in prison.

Padilla is not, nor was he ever, a central figure in the war on terror. The Brooklyn-born former gang member who converted to Islam has sequentially been demoted from the "Dirty Bomber" to the "Apartment Bomber" to "Random Bad Fella." And thus he joins Hamdi, Zacarias Moussaoui, John Walker Lindh, and most of the other big terror suspects we've convicted, or incarcerated without charges, as walk-ons repurposed to be special guest villains in the legal war on terror.