Ever since Eric Holder made the announcement that the Justice Department was going to tryKhalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York federal criminal court, the refrain from liberal columnists and TV hosts, administration flacks, and Democrat members of congress has been:
"We are going to show the world that we are better."
Better than what? On Fox News Sunday, Senator Jake Reed, (D. RI) told Chris Wallace. "This is an opportunity to show that we're better than the terrorists." Really? That's in doubt?
But if you put the talking point in context of what Barack Obama has said every chance he has gotten, in forums all over the world, here is what must be left unspoken for now, to avoid the charge of politics:
We are going to show the world that we are better now that Barack Obama is in charge. Now that we are no longer a warmongering rogue nation run by war criminals who were torturers and on the same moral level as the terrorists.
So, while Eric Holder is pretending his opponent in court is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, his political allies in the ACLU– or whatever radical group supplies the lawyers for the World Trade Center war criminals—will be putting the Bush Administration on trial.
Eric Holder and Barack Obama are making this possible. On purpose. In fact, as Rudy Gulliani pointed out on every Sunday talk show, they are going out their way to set this up, as other, far less important terrorists, are going to be tried by military tribunals.
When Eric Holder announced a few months ago that he was going to investigate the interrogators at the CIA, and anyone who gave them legal guidelines, it blew up in the Administration's face—everywhere except MSNBC, that is.
The American people who love to cheer for Jack Bauer and Dirty Harry are not clamoring to have the people sworn to protect them persecuted for putting a wet washcloth on the face of a mass murderer in order to prevent the slaughter of more innocents.
With his big announcement on that, Holder single-handedly resuscitated the public career of Dick Cheney, whose polls jumped overnight as the President's continued to slide.
So now, Eric Holder and Barack Obama area going to get Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to do their dirty work for them.
You don't believe me? Find one statement made by the Administration and its flacks that doesn't beggar belief.
Since when do we have trials to make a statement? What kind of legal precedent is that? Holder claims it's a legal tradition to have a trial in the same jurisdiction as the "crime."
Really? Then what does that phrase "change of venue" mean? What is it for? Are you really going to let this case be up to 12 people who are so stupid or mentally marginal that they have no opinion about the attacks on the World Trade Center?
(And the way this Administration leaks, you would have to find 12 very stupid or very brave people to want to be on this jury. All they have to do is find the name of one juror who doesn't want to be an al Qaeda target forever.)
White House ludicrously claims that Holder made the decision. That is either a blatant lie, or further proof that Barack Obama doesn't give a tinker's damn about national security.
If a decision of this magnitude can be made at the Attorney General level, with its implications for national security, for intelligence gathering and sources—not to mention it will make New York City ground zero for al Qaeda once again—then the dithering over Afghanistan by this bunch of radical amateurs takes on a whole new light.
The ACLU is lauding this decision, because they see it as their prime opportunity to dismantle America's security apparatus.
Otherwise, why would they not be howling at Holder's Alice in Wonderland verdict first, trial later statements. Since when is the ACLU okay with announcing a prosecutor is seeking the death penalty, when exact charges have not been filed? Is it a new ACLU practice to hail a prosecutor who brags about the jury pool being so tainted that he is confident of the verdict?
No, the ACLU is fine with all of this because they know this isn't the real target of Holder and Obama in this show trial:
They know that THIS is.
And with those stakes, who cares about a little issue like this?
