Former GWOT meets The Chicago Way The president said anyone offended by the unprecedented legal privileges afforded KSM in a civilian trial, instead of submission to the usual military tribunal for criminals captured on the battlefield, "won't find it offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him."
The attorney general, sharply questioned by several senators at a hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee, said, with more than a hint of prosecutorial smugness, that "failure is not an option." The 72 virgins waiting for KSM in Islamic paradise might as well start filling their lamps with oil in anticipation of their bridegroom. Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, a Democrat, was nevertheless not impressed. "Well," he said, "that's an interesting point of view." Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a Republican, agreed. "I don't know how you could say failure is not an option. I'm a farmer, not a lawyer, but it seems to me ludicrous."
It's not clear whether this is constitutional law as taught at Harvard Law (Barack Obama, Class of '91) or Columbia Law (Eric H. Holder, Class of '71), but it sounds a lot like law once taught in the court of the infamous Judge Roy Bean, "the law west of the Pecos."
Judge Bean held court in his saloon and, like Messrs Obama and Holder, made up his precedents as he needed them. Guaranteeing death for KSM, as much as the architect of 9/11 deserves it, sounds a lot like the Old West idea of frontier justice, as typically applied to a murderer or horse thief: "We're going to give you a fair trial and then we're going to hang your ornery hide." The judge usually put the carpenter at work on the gallows as part of the proceedings.
Mr. Obama later insisted that he had not prejudged the outcome of the trial when he prejudged the outcome.
(from
washingtontimes.com)
Rolling Back Obama, sooner or laterTwo things. First, because the president’s spending spree has failed to stimulate the economy -- as evidenced by the national unemployment figure topping 10% last month -- Americans have crafted a perfect campaign slogan for Republicans in 2010 and 2012. All they need to do is focus on three words: Roll Obama back.
Conservatives – and even most Republicans – are by nature incrementalists. They take things in small bites and chew on them for a long time to make them digestible. But voters’ anger and frustration at the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda doesn’t allow for that. If the Republicans want to make the huge gains they think are coming their way next year, they have to promise massive steps.
If the Republican agenda promises only small cut backs on Obama’s programs -- the unspent stimulus, the costs of the healthcare bill, the billions lost in taking over the automakers -- they will gain fewer seats next year than are needed to regain the majority.
But if Republicans choose to be bold -- if they promise to repeal and not just whittle at the Obama spending spree -- they can capture the political energy of the Tea Partyers and the Republican base. McConnell gets it: he proposed repeals of the unspent stimulus. But there needs to be a comprehensive itemization of the repeals as a foundation of the Republican campaigns.
