The defense? In US v. Abdulmutallab, the defendant is representing himself, like Zacarias Moussaoui did during his sentencing trial in Virginia and like Khalid Sheik Mohammed did when he went (briefly) on trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It's an al-Qaeda thing, evidently, to preclude your infidel lawyer from standing up for you in court. (It is evidently not an al-Qaeda thing to preclude your "stand-by" lawyer to file smart briefs in court. Abdulmutallab may make an opening statement next week in his own behalf. But his infidel lawyers-- on court-appointed stand-by to ensure the legitimacy of the trial-- have honorably protected his interests in pretrial motions).

They say that any defendant who hires himself as attorney has a fool for a client. Perhaps that explains why Abdulmutallab has acted so often like such a jackass during pre-trial proceedings. He's reportedly sat in court with his feet on the defense table, shouting "Osama lives" on more than one occasion. And he's refused to stand up in court for the entrance each session of U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds, a well-respected appointee of the first President Bush, who surely will earn her modest salary this month shepherding the 24-year-old Nigerian defendant through to verdict.

Judge Edmunds has a tough path to navigate. She has to allow Abdulmutallab to speak out on his own behalf without allowing him to do what he's desperate to do; turn the trial into a zoo. Moussaoui tried to do the same thing during his 2006 sentencing trial but U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema schooled him with a blend of judicial power and motherly firmness. I bet you a steak dinner that Judge Edmunds already has been in touch with Judge Brinkema about how to handle an unwieldy al-Qaeda defendant during a jury trial. The two judges are part of an exclusive club, after all.

And I bet you that Judge Edmunds will be able to control Abdulmutallab for the course of the trial. He's got the same balancing act that she does, when you think about it. If he goes too far in disrespecting the court or the country, he runs the risk of being kicked out of his own trial. It's an extraordinary remedy but trial judges have been known to relegate criminal defendants to a cell where they can view the proceedings via closed circuit. If that happens to Abdulmutallab, he'll lose his audience and his voice. And, let's face it, that's all he has right now.

Like my ol' pal Kenneth Starr just wrote in the Times, it is a crying shame that there are no television cameras in federal courts. If there were cameras in US v. Abdulmutalallab, the cynics on Capitol Hill who don't trust American judges and juries to handle terror cases would learn the most important unlearned lesson in terror law since the Twin Towers fell: the more people see of these al-Qaeda suspects the less scary they become. The more the spotlight shines upon them, the less monster-like they appear. Moussaoui was a joke by the end of his trial. If Abdulmutallab doesn't sit up straight and behave he'll be a joke, too.