Another picture Bush doesn’t want you to see: The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the government to give it a rest in the case of recently acquitted terror suspect Sami Al-Arian. But Bush pettiness and pandering probably won’t allow that. St. Petersburg Times:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida urged the government Monday not to retry Sami Al-Arian, who was acquitted in December on eight counts of terrorism-related charges in a federal trial in Tampa. The jury hung on nine counts, with 10 jurors favoring total acquittal on all but an immigration charge.

In a letter to federal authorities, the director of the Florida ACLU wrote: “In light of the jury’s acquittal … on the most serious charges and in light of reportedly spending millions of dollars in a trial that led to no convictions, a decision to retry (Dr. Al-Arian) would appear to be pointless and vindictive.”

But “pointless and vindictive” kind of sums up the Bush approach to fighting terror. Why, you might ask, does Bush Co. have a personal stake in this trial? The real Al-Arian/Republican story is pretty juicy.

Sami Al-Arian was a University of South Florida professor when Betty Castor, who would lose a U.S. Senate campaign to former Bush Co. HUD Secretary Mel Martinez in 2004, was the school’s president. The Martinez campaign trumpeted three themes: Martinez was from Cuba, Martinez was Bush’s best friend, and Castor was soft on terror because of her handling of Al-Arian.

Castor suspended Al-Arian after the FBI began investigating his fundraising for Palestinian causes during the early and middle 1990s. Actually firing a tenured professor, however, takes hard evidence, and the FBI was unable to share such information with the school under pre-9/11 laws. USF contacted and was similarly refused by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Florida Dept. of Law Enforcement and U.S. Marshals Service. After the U.S. Dept. of Justice replied with “no comment” on the investigation’s status in 1998, Al-Arian was allowed to return to his old post. Castor left USF in October, 1999.

This is where the story gets really interesting. Guess whose smiling picture with his whole family was taken with the candidate during W’s 2000 campaign? And guess who Karl Rove invited to the White House the following year? castorfacts.com has the documentation:

Al-Arian campaigned in Florida with Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign and had his photo taken with Bush at the Florida Strawberry festival in Plant City. Bush gave Al-Arian’s son, Abdullah, the nickname, “Big Dude.” Al-Arian later boasted that he had delivered the margin of victory in Florida to Bush. According to Newsweek, “Al-Arian campaigned vigorously for the Republicans at mosques and Islamic cultural centers. ‘We certainly delivered him many more than 537 votes,’ he says, referring to Bush’s margin of victory in the election.” (Newsweek, 7/16/01; NBC Today Show, 2/24/03)

…On June 20, 2001, Al-Arian was briefed on Bush’s faith-based agenda and other issues by Rove and others in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is adjacent to the White House. Al-Arian passed the required security check, which he said gave him confidence that he was no longer suspected of being a terrorist supporter or sympathizer…Al-Arian said he sat in the front row. (Washington Post, 2/22/03, 7/28/02)

…In 2001, Al-Arian’s son Abdullah [aka “Big Dude”] was a Congressional intern and received press coverage when the Secret Service kicked him out of a meeting in a White House annex…According to Newsweek, “Secret Service issued an apology within the hour.” A few weeks later, Bush sent a personal letter of apology to the Al-Arians, saying, “I have been assured that everything possible is being done to ensure that nothing like this happens again.” He thanked them for their support, saying he sincerely appreciated the charity work being done by the Muslim community they helped lead. (Newsweek, 7/16/01; Council on American-Islamic Relations Press Release, 6/28/01; Boston Globe, 2/22/03; Egypt Today, 12/10/03)

Four years later, in February, 2003 Al-Arian was finally arrested by the federal government on charges he raised money for terrorists. The arrest came just in time to ensure a Martinez victory, since everyone assumed Al-Arian was guilty before the first juror was selected. The Martinez campaign ran ads with the bulldog-faced candidate looking solemn and tisking over Castor’s judgement. They stayed just this side of saying a woman isn’t up to the challenge of fighting terrorists but you got the idea loud and clear. Ads from soft money committees were even worse, with one showing a picture of Osama bin Laden that claimed he would be happy if Betty Castor won.

Bush’s ties to Al-Arian didn’t receive much attention at the time except for outlets like The Fort Report.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mel Martinez has staked his campaign on the issue of terrorism and his close ties to President Bush. Martinez attacks Democrat Betty Castor for action she took as president of the University of South Florida, when she suspended a professor who was suspected of ties to terrorist groups. Although she took the toughest action allowed by law, Martinez said Castor didn’t do enough to deal with professor Sami Al-Arian.

While he attacks Castor, Martinez gives a pass to George W. Bush, who campaigned with the same suspected terrorist in 2000 and invited him to a high-level White House meeting in 2001. According to the St. Petersburg Times, Martinez said it “didn’t matter” that a terrorist suspect under federal investigation attended a meeting with top Bush adviser Karl Rove on White House grounds. And Martinez told WFLA-TV that Bush posing for a photo with the suspect was “irrelevant.”

If only they could make it all go away now. If they keep trying Al-Arian long enough, they might make something stick. Although you would think that a six-month trial in which the defendant presented no defense would get that job done.

[The Florida ACLU’s] Simon said he “had reason to believe” that the U.S. attorney’s office in Tampa was against a retrial but was not being supported by Washington: “I think Tampa recognizes it’s time to fold the tent, but Washington won’t let them because they’re worried about saving face.”

That train left the station quite awhile ago, however, and George and Karl weren’t on it.