A former adjunct professor at Georgetown University, Lawrence Stratton, has co-authored a book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, taking the side of former Florida Professor Sami Al-Arian, who went to prison for conspiring to help a terrorist group and agreed to be deported. Al-Arian faces a possible criminal contempt indictment for his refusal to testify before a federal grand jury investigating terror financing in northern Virginia. Stratton and his co-author, Paul Craig Roberts, support Al-Arian’s claim that the subpoena is invalid because his plea deal absolved him from any cooperation with law enforcement.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism asserts that the authors are “so wildly incorrect on the basic facts that [their book] reads almost like parody.” They are, in effect, “lying about the fundamental issues in his case.” Contemptible.