There was big news on Tuesday, but it didn’t come from either John McCain or Barack Obama in the presidential debate between the two held in Nashville, Tennessee. Rather, it came from a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., where a U.S. district judge ordered the release -- into the United States -- of 17 detainees who have been held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base since 2002.

Luckily, this latest detainee disaster was averted -- at least temporarily -- when an appellate panel issued a stay the following day so that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit could consider the issue before the status quo changed. Nevertheless, the stark and shocking reality of the initial ruling remains.

Indeed, the Washington Post highlighted the significance of the decision by reporting in a front-page story that “it was the first time a U.S. judge has ordered the release of a Guantanamo Bay detainee, and the first time a foreign national held at the facility in Cuba has been ordered transferred to the United States.”

If that didn’t adequately make the point, the Post article went on to explain that these specific detainees “cannot be sent to their homeland because the Chinese government considers them terrorists,” and “no other country” is willing to accept them. In fact, the Justice Department’s argument against release was that even current “U.S. law would deny [these detainees] entry because they trained at camps sponsored by … a group that the Bush administration designated a terrorist organization.”

Think about that for a minute.

On Tuesday, a federal judge concluded not only that the Bush administration could no longer hold 17 Chinese Muslims who had been captured on the battlefield in Tora Bora, but also that these former “enemy combatants” should be set free in the United States -- specifically, into our nation’s capital region, Washington D.C.

Nevertheless, later that night, neither of the two candidates who want to be the next President of the United States even mentioned the detainee decision or what it means for our national security or terrorism policy during their nationally televised debate. Instead, both presidential candidates were content to remain silent.

Of course, it should have been perfectly clear just how serious this matter really was. But, even if it wasn’t, or if the candidates were too involved in prepping on economic questions, the situation certainly merited comment after the Justice Department filed an emergency motion with the appeals court, noting that these detainees “have sought to wage terror on a sovereign government,” and were captured “fleeing a military training camp in Afghanistan” where they had received automatic weapons training.

Still, there was no reported comment. No discussion of why a federal judge thought our Constitution mandated the release of these detainees who had wanted to wage a war of terror against another sovereign government, even if not specifically against the United States. No discussion of how a federal judge could, in the words of long-time Supreme Court reporter Lyle Denniston, grant these detainees “outright release into the United States” without even being clear about their “immigration status.” No discussion of why our country should open its doors to these detainees when no other country would. No discussion of what should happen with the more than 200 other detainees who continue to be held at Guantanamo Bay.

The reason that there was no comment from either presidential contender is that there are no good answers now. The Supreme Court has, through decision after decision, created more and more rights for the detainees despite the fact that they are not American citizens and are not being held in the United States.

This has resulted in a legal situation that the government probably cannot win. Thus, Tuesday’s stunning release order -- though on hold for now -- will likely be only the first shoe of many to drop.

In the book “Plan of Attack,” Bob Woodward reported that former secretary of State Colin Powell had said the so-called “Pottery Barn rule” applied to the United States’ decision to pursue regime change in Iraq. In other words, “you break it, you own it.” But this is just as true with respect to the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we now find ourselves stuck with these detainees. After all, no one -- especially not a country with its own security concerns -- wants to take a trouble-maker back, and so we “own” the detainees since we cannot get their homelands -- or for that matter any sovereign country -- to take them back. Thus, McCain and Obama need to add the detainee disaster to the topics up for debate because the American people have a right to know what our ownership of that situation means for our future.