I wonder if our pal Ed Whelan’s eyes popped out this morning — as mine did — on reading the New York Times report about oral argument in the Supreme Court yesterday in a case involving U.S. citizens being held in Iraq.

As Ed has previously recounted in great detail (I wrote about it here, citing Ed’s work), the Times and its Supreme Court reporter, Linda Greenhouse, have been mum about Ms. Greenhouse’s own conflict-of-interest, namely, the fact that she has been reporting on cases in which her husband is a litigant (on behalf of alien enemy combatants detained in the war on terror). This morning, however, she demonstrates keen awareness of a lawyer’s conflicting loyalties which, she implies, may very well have disserved the clients in yesterday’s case:

The argument on behalf of the two men by Joseph Margulies, of the MacArthur Justice Center at the Northwestern University School of Law, prompted questioning [from the Court] that was at least as skeptical [as that directed at the government]. His position that the men’s American citizenship was an important factor, but not necessarily a conclusive one in defining their rights, appeared to confuse even those justices who, like Justice John Paul Stevens, were his natural allies.
The lawyer’s discomfiture on the citizenship question may have reflected an unspoken subtext to the argument: that the court is simultaneously considering, in a separate case, the rights to habeas corpus by the noncitizen detainees at Guantánamo Bay. Mr. Margulies has represented men in that group as well, and may not have wanted to pursue an argument that could undermine their chances. [Emphasis added.]

ME: If Greenhouse is right, Joseph Margulies may have failed to give the American detainees in the Iraq case the full-throated zeal to which they were entitled because doing so — i.e., suggesting their American citizenship might be dispositive — would have harmed his non-U.S.-citizen client in the Gitmo case. That would be a pretty severe conflict, and pointing it out is excellent reporting on Greenhouse’s part. Would that she were consistent …