Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
The Obama administration on Friday gave up on its plan to try the Sept. 11 plotters in Lower Manhattan, bowing to almost unanimous pressure from New York officials and business leaders to move the terrorism trial elsewhere.
“I think I can acknowledge the obvious,” an administration official said. “We’re considering other options.”
The reversal on whether to try the alleged 9/11 terrorists blocks from the former World Trade Center site seemed to come suddenly this week, after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg abandoned his strong support for the plan and said the cost and disruption would be too great.
But behind the brave face that many New Yorkers had put on for weeks, resistance had been gathering steam.
After a dinner in New York on Dec. 14, Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, pulled aside David Axelrod, President Obama’s closest adviser, to convey an urgent plea: move the 9/11 trial out of Manhattan.
More recently, in a series of presentations to business leaders, local elected officials and community representatives of Chinatown, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly laid out his plan for securing the trial: blanketing a swath of Lower Manhattan with police checkpoints, vehicle searches, rooftop snipers and canine patrols.
“They were not received well,” said one city official.
It endangered the country, and besides of which it was insensitive.
So we’ll do the sensible thing now: Try them in civilian court somewhere else. Keep up the danger to the country but try to be a bit more sensitive.
At least I think so. Thankfully, the story does go on to cast some doubt on that…
…[I]t is possible that the reversal will call into question the calibrated effort of Mr. Obama and his attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., to bring the handling of suspected terrorists out of the realm of military emergency and into the halls of civilian justice.
Hope for change?
The New York Post goes a bit further:
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.
The back-to-the-future Gitmo option was reported yesterday by Fox News and was not disputed by White House officials.
Such a move would likely bring howls of protest from liberals already frustrated that President Obama has failed to meet his deadline for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
It would also indicate that after years of attacking the Bush administration for its handling of the war on terror, Obama officials are embracing one of the most controversial aspects of it.
The administration is likely considering Gitmo because Congress is moving to cut off funding for holding the expensive trials in civilians courts.
Rep. Peter King (R-LI) has introduced a bill that would prohibit the use of Justice Department funds to try Guantanamo detainees in federal civilian courts, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he would introduce a similar bill in the Senate next week.
Okay then. Perhaps we’re pulling out of the cul de sac.
Cul de sac…yes, that’s it. We indulge in silly ideas that don’t really work, when we feel like we can afford it. We vote in liberals when it seems we live in such luxury, that choosing an option that sounds good — turning down a certain road — is a trivial and meaningless decision that never has any actual impact on anything anyway. So why not make the turn that is pleasing to the intellectual lightweights, who live in a pretend-fairyland? After all, they vote just as reliably as the “real” people, and make a hell of a lot more noise.
And then we reach the end of the cul de sac.
Good Lord, what a lot of wasted energy.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Didn’t all those NYC’ers vote for Obama? Isn’t this what they wanted?
I don’t get it. What did they think was going to happen?
NIMBY in action.
Do it in Kansas?
I have an idea … how ’bout we have Military Tribunals in Guantanamo Bay. That place is still open and available, right?
- philmon | 01/30/2010 @ 21:18I was just thinking myself that the United States Government has at its disposal an eminently well-configured piece of Caribbean real estate for use in trying KSM, but philmon and about half the other conservatives in the world have already mentioned it.
- vvp39 | 01/31/2010 @ 16:17