Well, I guess you could argue that yesterday's pronouncement that Khalid Sheik Mohamed and his cohorts would not be tried in Civil Court was somewhat of a reality check, but the Attorney General pretty much stated that he still doesn't get it. In what was a complete about face, the Obama Administration has retreated to the position put forth by the Bush administration.
Vindicating Guantanamo
KSM and his fellow murderers will now be tried by military commissions of the kind that President George W. Bush proposed in the earliest days of the conflict formerly known as the war on terror. Someone should write the headline: Holder vindicates Ashcroft, as in Mr. Bush's first AG. Or how about: Current State Department Counselor Harold Koh vindicates John Yoo, the much-maligned Bush Justice Department official whose views on Presidential power have also been increasingly adopted by Team Obama.We declared in 2009 on these pages that the thought of trying KSM and other terrorists in civil court was a boneheaded idea.
Somehow we doubt we'll hear the same moral denunciations we once heard about Mr. Bush's policies. The Europeans are mute about Guantanamo, and Newsweek hasn't come up with any more pseudo-scoops about Gitmo guards desecrating the Quran. Mr. Holder made clear he's not about to apologize, much less thank his predecessors for their foresight, but we suppose his vindication of Guantanamo is enough.
This is your idea of Hope?
Mr Holder has demonstrated that he is out of touch with the law by thinking that it was appropriate to bring enemy combatants who were apprehended in other countries to the U.S. without any precedent. He has demonstrated he is out of touch with what is good for America for thinking it was appropriate to have the civil trials just blocks away from ground zero. And he has demonstrated that he is out of touch with reality by communicating that he still does not get it with his begrudged declaration that because of congress he was not getting his way.
Eric Holder should resign.
