The Base Realignment and Closure Commission is giving the Department of Defense one more chance to make its case for closing military facilities, including three in Maine.

The argument has been won – time and again – by the defenders of Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and Brunswick Naval Air Station that the two bases are a vital link in the country’s national defense. Yet, even though the bases fail to meet the Department of Defense’s own criteria for closure, they remain on the list for mothballs.

The unusual Saturday public hearing gives the DOD the opportunity to spin its poorly constructed web over the state’s military bases once again – without giving state leaders and base defenders the time to appropriately answer its claims.

The Defense Department doesn’t want to close Brunswick; it just wants to gut it. The BRAC Commission added the base to the closure list and tried to force Gov. Baldacci to pick the lesser of two evils: closure or realignment.

The governor rightly held firm. Neither option, he told the commission, was acceptable.

Now, perhaps looking for cover before its members begin voting next week on the final closure list, the BRAC is giving the Pentagon the last say. Once the commission makes it recommendations to the president and Congress, the list can’t be amended. It can only be approved or rejected.

If Maine loses the two bases and the accounting office in Limestone, we could face a congressionally mandated, president-approved recession and a negative economic impact that could approach $500 million.

Perhaps the BRAC Commission has uncovered the flaws in the DOD’s argument, but we won’t breathe easy until we see how the voting goes next week.