Holder’s Feverish Plans: Law Via the Whim Theory

When the Obama administration came aboard there was some concern that they would effectively destroy the humint — human intelligence — gathering by various federal agencies charged with collecting information about those who wish to destroy us.

Via Rich Lowry’s National Review link on Twitter, there’s a Newsweek story on two of Holder’s recent setbacks in this department.

Being the MSM, this rag can’t resist opening with a snark attack against those who were worried about the safety of NYC . This concern was due to Attorney General Holder’s strange decision to have the KSM et al civilian trial take place in what would have been the shadow of the Twin Towers. That is, the shadows which would have been except for the evil machinations of KSM & his friends.

Get this little spin:

For weeks, the right has heckled Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. for his plans to try the alleged 9/11 conspirators in New York City and his handling of the Christmas bombing plot suspect.

“Alleged”? They admitted their guilt. What’s to allege? Oh, I forgot, the administration decided to give them constitutional protection. So now we have the polite fiction and moral disgust of “alleged”.

Those naughty “hecklers”! How rude of them to be concerned with the safety of New Yorkers and the cost of this unnecessary trial for killers who have already admitted their guilt.

And how tacky of them to criticize the administration for converting yet one more Yemen-trained terrorist into a special case civilian trial so that the failed destruction of Detroit can be seen through the lens of a perp who now has the right to remain silent… and will do so. Why don't we just make all al-Qaeda operatives into American citizens and be done with it? These criminals are de facto citizens via their access to constitutional rights. Why not make it de jure and save a lot of time? All the shuck and jive this administration does as it protects people who try to kill us or produces gutless reports about those who do kill us, e.g., Major Hasan, is proof of either incompetence or cooperation with the enemy. Given its decisions in other areas, I'll go with incompetence.

New York City as a venue for the KSM trial will stand as one of the dumber decisions in an administration that has almost too many dumbnities to enumerate. It wasn’t the “hecklers” on the right who got this moved. It was the refusal of New York City officials to participate in an assisted suicide decision by Attorney General Holder. New York police and citizens aren’t willing to die for Holder’s whims.

As for the second snide assertion… I forget, what was the purpose of attacking the al Qaeda bases if Yemen if we’re going to let their graduates into the country while attired in bomb-grade underwear? This is definitely a “don’t-let-the-right-hand-know-what-the-left-hand-is-doing” kinda group running things in Washington.

Of course, the White House has now moved the site of the KSM trials due to heckling, but no one knows where it’s headed yet. There’s a recent prediction that the Keystone Kops are maybe taking it all back to Gitmo for the circus. If so, at least the American populace will be safer:

The trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed won’t be held in lower Manhattan and could take place in a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, sources said last night.

Administration officials said that no final decision had been made but that officials of the Department of Justice and the White House were working feverishly to find a venue that would be less expensive and less of a security risk than New York City.

“Working feverishly”, are they? The decisions to (a) go federal civilian for these 9/11 accomplices instead of using the military for a trial in which guilt had been substantiated and admitted by the perps, and (b) moving the mess to New York City, were surely decisions arising from some kind of swamp fever. Now Holder’s being forced to roll back at least one of those stupidities.

Meanwhile, back at Newsweak, the snark turns slightly more even-handed:
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Now the left is going to be upset: an upcoming Justice Department report from its ethics-watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), clears the Bush administration lawyers who authored the “torture” memos of professional-misconduct allegations.

Notice there is no mention of the heckling by the left — continuous and unrelenting — that these lawyers be put on trial for their “crimes”. No, the left doesn’t heckle, it just gets “upset”.

I haven’t yet read how upset they’re going to be when they find out that the show starring KSM is going to open in Gitmo instead of the Big Apple. Can you say “spittle-flecking hysteria”? This is another major betrayal by the One They Were Waiting For. Not only is Gitmo still extant, but The One & Co. are busy expanding its features: a civilian trial in a military installation.

It doesn’t get much more feverish or disorganized or incoherent than that.