As the New York Times and the Washington Post have reported, a military judge has rejected President Obama’s request for a four-month adjournment in the military commission case of a man accused of bombing the U.S.S. Cole in October 2000, an atrocity in which 17 members of the U.S. Navy were killed. This is a petulant exercise and it can only serve to make it even more unlikely that the commission system, which has performed poorly, will be continued.

Understand the setting here: Nothing of importance has happened in the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri thus far — the charges were not lodged until December 19, and he he hasn’t even been arraigned on them yet (that is scheduled to happen on February 9). It’s not like a trial was underway and the administration stepped in and interfered with it.

Nashiri is believed by the intelligence community to have been complicit in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and to have attended a crucial January 2000 strategy session in Kuala Lampur which included two of the 9/11 hijackers and is likely among the first planning meetings for those attacks. That summit came only three days after Nashiri’s failed attempt to attack the U.S.S. The Sullivans — the bombing of the Cole, ten months later, was the second attempt against a U.S. ship in Yemen. That was nine years ago. Nashiri continued fighting the jihad until he was apprehended in the United Arab Emirates in 2002 — it’s not like he heard he was wanted, surrendered himself, and demanded a speedy trial.

As regards whether to continue with the military commissions of the 21 detainees currently charged with war crimes, Obama may make a terrible decision, he may make a good one, or he may do something in between. But in any event, it was entirely reasonable for him to ask for a four-month time-out — which was done in a very respectful manner that did not in any way denigrate the dignity of the military tribunals. He is still getting his national security team in place and getting them the clearances they need to get up to speed on all the relevant facts, many of which are no doubt highly classified. He 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.

The judge, Army Col. James Pohl, who is also the chief military judge at Guantanamo Bay, asserted that he found the the government’s arguments for delay “unpersuasive,” and thus reasoned that “the public interest in a speedy trial will be harmed by the delay in the arraignment.” That’s nonsense. No harm whatsoever will be done if Nashiri is not arraigned until May (assuming the commission process is continued). Futhermore, it is now likely that the military will simply dismiss the charges against Nashiri without prejudice to its ability to reinstate them later on — that is, if Col. Pohl really was interested in swift justice, all he will have achieved by this stunt is additional delay since reinstatement would mean arraignment sometime after May.

According to the Post, Pohl also wrote, “The Commission is unaware of how conducting an arraignment would preclude any option by the administration,” and that “Congress passed the military commissions act, which remains in effect. The Commission is bound by the law as it currently exists, not as it may change in the future.” This, too, is just silly. The administration is not claiming that the Military Commissions Act is bad law; it is considering, as a matter of policy, whether the military commission system is the best way to handle these cases — which, given the way the system has performed so far, is a highly reasonable question to ask. The president’s request is perfectly consistent with the MCA and, given the study that is being undertaken, prudence dictates that there not be any further procedural steps in the commissions until their future is settled. That’s why other military judges readily acceded to the request for an adjournment.

So what we have here is a temper tantrum by a grandstanding judge. However inadvertently, Col. Pohl is just giving President Obama more 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).