Inside Politics

LEGAL DAGGER

“Take the iconic ‘I Love New York’ poster and plunge a dagger into its heart. That’s what the Obama administration is doing by bringing the mastermind of 9/11 and other terror freaks here for trial,” New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin writes.

“We don’t deserve this. Why are we being punished again?” Mr. Goodwin asked.

Attorney General Eric H. HolderJr.’s decision to ship Khalid ShaikhMohammed “and four other Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Manhattan for federal trials is beyond bad judgment.”

“It is a radical call that puts his leftist legal theories over public safety and common sense. The war on terror is being relabeled as a crime problem, in the very shadow of Ground Zero.

“Mohammed and his murderous crew don’t belong in civilian courts, where they will get defendant rights designed for ordinary criminal suspects. They declared war on our nation, were captured on foreign battlefields and deserve no presumption of innocence or other constitutional protections.

“They’ll use our liberties to turn the trial into propaganda for their warped cause. Their images and words will fly around the world as fodder for a new generation of jihadists. The federal courthouse and detention center will become a fortress. The judge, prosecutors, witnesses, federal agents and jury will need protection, some for years. It’s madness.”

BLUNT LOGIC

“The president has been taking time thinking about Afghanistan,” Peggy Noonan writes at www.opinion journal.com.

“I cannot see why this is bad. If he’s really thinking, he’s not dithering - thought can be harder than action, weighing plans as hard as choosing and executing one. A question of such consequence deserves pondering. A president ought to summon and hear counsel before committing or removing American troops,” Miss Noonan said.

“The president is not, apparently, holding serious discussions with the most informed and concerned Republicans from Capitol Hill and what used to be called the foreign-policy establishment, and this, if true, is bad. The cliche that politics stops at the water’s edge is a fiction worth preserving. It’s a story that ought to be true, and sometimes is true.

“There seems to be something in this president that resists really including the opposition. Maybe it’s too great a sense of self-sufficiency, or maybe he’s bowing to the reigning premise that we live in a poisonously partisan age, that the old forms and ways no longer apply. But why bow to that? To bow to it is to make it truer. The opposition is full of patriots who wish their country well. Bow to that.

“All will depend on the outcome. If his decision is sound and ends in success, history will not say he was indecisive and Hamlet-like. If his decision results in failure, history will not celebrate his wonderfully cerebral deliberative style.

“President Obama will tell us his decision soon, probably in a speech. Because it will be big, and high-stakes, there will be people telling him he must do many things, including tug at the nation’s heartstrings and move it with his vision. He really shouldn’t do this.

“Now of all times, and in this of all speeches, sheer, blunt logic is needed. He must appeal not to the nation’s heart but to its brain.”

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