Three years after Obama eloquently opposed the Military Commissions Act, the now-president signed a Military Commissions Act of his own, as part of the 2010 Defense Authorization Bill. The law, which sought to overhaul the discredited Bush-era military commissions for "alien enemy combatants," introduced what is apparently turning out to be an important new term to the counterterror lexicon: Unprivileged Enemy Belligerent, defined as "an individual who: 1) has engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners; or 2) has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners."...

In Obama's defense bill, the word "alien" preceded the term "unprivileged belligerents," in defining who can be held before a military commission. For McCain and Lieberman's purposes, omitting the word "alien" apparently means the label can apply to U.S. citizens, while, politically, the word "unpriviliged" provides a useful connotation: terror suspects will not be coddled like common criminals!

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