Several words by way of closure re the Lt. Col. Terry Lakin affair.  Readers who followed it (see story here) learned that, on the day of his sentencing, he conceded that the Army was the wrong place to make his case, and that he would like to be reinstated, and would deploy if ordered to do so.One might view this outcome as a defeat of the brave actor who originally refused orders which he contended derived from a commander-in-chief of extremely questionable provenance.  Lakin's final posture was, to be sure, ultimately less defiant than some might have wished, given the history of his public defiance and the subsequent confessional quality of the allocution.  It seems certain that his alternative would have been to spend years in Leavenworth instead of the six months he got.  But his case was already lost, early, when Judge Lind denied him discovery, witnesses, and argument in the early phases of the trial.  The point is that this doubtless is not the last...(Read Full Post)