thump and whip

As usual, Obama (along with his Attorney General, Eric Holder) has failed utterly and spectacularly. How could he be so stupid?

By trying the terrorists in our civilian courts, it mocks the system. By guaranteeing that they will be convicted, legal processes have been tainted. By allowing them traditional access, they may escape with a not guilty verdict, like O.J. Simpson.

They seem to trying on every complaint on the rack in reaction to Holder’s decision. Frankly, it sounds like they just don’t know what to say: Obama can’t both be subverting the system by locking in a conviction and be letting the terrorists off the hook. It sounds like they’re just angry with the President regardless of what he does.

Of course, you’d be angry with him, too, if he’d made the right decision, justice-wise, when justice was the last thing you were interested in.

Obama in Wonderland
by Ken Blackwell

“…Queen of Hearts: Now then, are you ready for your sentence?

Alice: But there has to be a verdict first.

Queen of Hearts: Sentence first! Verdict afterwards.”

…Now, this is the model of criminal justice that the President wants to showcase for the entire world. The U.S. is going to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a federal court in Manhattan. That’s the city where nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered by the 9/11 terrorists.

…We say we are going to give a fair trial to this man. He is going to be found guilty, the President tells us. And, Mr. Obama continues, he is going to get the death penalty.

…Obama is the man who “hovers above us all like a sort of God,” said Newsweek editor Evan Thomas. When such a pronouncement of guilt and such assurance of execution comes down from such an Olympian character, how precisely, is Holder going to find an impartial jury?

New Yorkers voted overwhelmingly for Obama. Are New York jurors going to say they have not heard what Obama said about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Will they say their view of the “defendant” was not prejudiced by the man who has access to far more national security information than any of them do? Can any of them really say they would pay Obama’s views of this “suspect” no special attention?…

This is a travesty, this guarantee by the President. He’s corrupted our whole system, even though he obviously hasn’t. The execrable Ohio voting fraudster Ken Blackwell surely would prefer a military trial. Where all the jurors, though taking orders from this biased corrupter, the Commander in Chief, would somehow rise above the corruption. Or, at least, do better than New Yorkers. Perhaps because Ken is betting they didn’t vote for the President? Brilliant legal reasoning.

Verdict First, Trial Afterward
by Paul Greenberg

Worried about trying the ringleader of the 9/11 terrorists and four of his close associates in a civilian courtroom?

Don’t be, says our president. He knows just how the trial will turn out — Khalid Sheik Mohammed will be convicted and executed. We have his word on it.

He makes the trial sound like just a formality. And here some of us thought trials didn’t have a predetermined outcome, not in America. Naive us.

…Pick your favorite downside of this change of venue. There are lots to choose from. And others will become evident only as this show trial gets on the road. It promises to have a longer run than any Broadway hit.

…Yet the president insists on a civilian trial in order to demonstrate the fairness and superiority of civilian courts in such cases — even as he proclaims the trial’s outcome.

First it was Obamacare. Now the country is about to get Obamalaw, which promises to be a treasure trove of such ironies.

Greenberg also believes a military tribunal would have been better, but it’s not entirely clear why. Perhaps tribunals are older and better(?). He also seems to think that the President should have said “Hell, I have no idea if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s going to get convicted.” I’m sure that would have brought the Conservatives immediately to their feet, cheering like the rabid fans of blind justice they so clearly are.

Among other complaints of Greenberg’s: we’re going to see another circus like Zacarias Moussaoui’s trial. He’s now serving life without parole in a Supermax in Colorado, what a ‘clown’.

And, he says, this Obama decision is the “latest instance of justice delayed and therefore denied.” Only by wingnut logic is the decision to finally move forward with trials a delay or denial. The miltary tribunals have been fraught with snafus because of the difficulties of dealing with evidence gotten through torture. Holder and Obama are obviously confident they can throw all of that garbage out the door and obtain civilian convictions. I’d bet the military prosecutors weren’t so confident.

KSM and O.J.
by Linda Chavez

If there was ever a more irresponsible decision by a U.S. attorney general than Eric Holder’s decision to try the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attack and four others as common criminals in a civilian court in New York City, I can’t recall it. He is gambling with the nation’s security and providing a platform that will give aid and comfort to the enemy at a time of war. And he is doing so with no discernible benefit, least of all to showcase the strength of our judicial system.

Does Eric Holder remember the most infamous criminal trial of the 20th century, the 1995 trial of O.J. Simpson for the murder of his estranged wife, Nicole, and Ronald Goldman? There are obvious differences between a criminal murder trial in a state court and one tried in federal district court — and, the O.J. trial featured incompetent prosecutors who tried their case before an inept judge — but there are also problems inherent in the system that may not be avoided. No matter what Holder says about failure to convict not being an option, our entire legal system is based on the presumption of innocence of the accused and there are simply no guarantees.

A look back at what went wrong in the O.J. trial is chilling. The die was cast in favor of acquittal the moment the jurors were seated. They were not a cross-section of Los Angeles, where the trial was held: There were 10 women, two men; nine blacks, two whites, and one Hispanic. Their education was below average — nine had only a high school education and 1 lacked even that. According to the questionnaires they filled out before they were selected, none regularly read a newspaper, but eight regularly watched tabloid TV; five thought it was sometimes permissible to use physical force against a family member; and four reported they or a family member had had a negative experience with police. All were registered Democrats…

Well, now the whole civilian system is a failure and a joke? Evil is impossible to prosecute when there are Democratic jurists around? What happened to Obama’s ‘Verdict First’ fascism?

I think we know what’s really going on here, politically speaking. The wingnuts prefer to keep the terrorists out of the civilian system because the trials will be open and could be fair. That’s why they’re freaking out.

The true nature of ‘fairness’ involves risk: either side has the opportunity to win the case. If you take the risk of losing, but you prevail, everybody senses that it was the merits of the case, not some tricked-up system, that carried the load.

The reasons Conservatives instead want military tribunals is because they foolishly assume that the verdicts are absolutely guaranteed. Why? Hey–they’re the military! And, on top of that, with the military’s legendary and necessary secrecy, to be lauded by the Right, the public will never really be able to see how it happened.

It’s secret and one-sided justice that they’re seeking, and it isn’t American justice at all.