Lest we forget, the court martial proceedings against Bradley Manning continue to grind on, bogged down by one delay after another raised by his seemingly inept defense team. This week, yet another pair of charges which Team Manning wanted thrown out remained on the table.

A military judge has again refused to throw out two of the 22 charges against an Army private charged in the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history.

Attorneys for Pfc. Bradley Manning argued earlier this week during a hearing at Maryland’s Fort Meade that two charges should be dropped. The judge overseeing the case, Col. Denise Lind, denied the request Wednesday. She agreed with military prosecutors it would be improper to drop the charges at this point.

So what new line of attack are Manning’s lawyers taking? This one may be even tougher than the rest to translate into any human language, but the short version seems to be… no harm no foul.

A US soldier accused of passing a trove of documents to WikiLeaks asked a military judge Wednesday to allow him to cite evidence showing his leak caused no damage to the United States.

A defense lawyer for US Army private Bradley Manning argued that his client took care to disclose files that would not harm US interests and subsequent government reports have shown no major “injury” was caused.

Look… I’m no fan of Bradley Manning, as is well known. (Assuming that the charges are proven true, which his own attorney seems to have just confessed.) But David Coombs needs to be fired. Manning, like any US citizen and soldier, deserves a fair and valid attempt at a defense in a proper inquiry, even assuming he’s guilty. This latest twist just makes Coombs look deranged.

His argument is that, since the US military isn’t willing to go into court and empty the bag on top secret information detailing precisely which efforts were harmed by Manning’s actions, then.. what? Then nobody got hurt so flushing a quarter million sensitive documents shouldn’t be illegal?

Where did this guy get his law degree? From a cereal box?