GOP: Justice is more than NYC can handle

The announcement from Atty. Gen. Eric Holder that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other Guantanamo inmates would be tried in federal court was a strong statement of the primacy of the rule of law in this country.

Predictably,  the GOP leadership hated it.

From Talking Points Memo:

“The Obama Administration’s irresponsible decision to prosecute the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in New York City puts the interests of liberal special interest groups before the safety and security of the American people,” Boehner said in a statement. “This decision is further evidence that the White House is reverting to a dangerous pre-9/11 mentality – treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue and hoping for the best.”

But if those “liberal special interest groups”  are based largely in Noo Yawk Citay, is it not fitting that they should bear the risk of holding the trial there?  Maybe Boehner is hoping Gothamites will realize that they just aren’t competent to keep their city safe during the event, and will opt for summary execution like all “real Americans”.

The contempt with which the Republican leadership holds everything in America except themselves and the insurance business lobby continues to amaze me.

America is the best country in the world, they keep telling us — yet we can’t trust the courts to dispense justice and still keep the country safe.

America is the envy of the world, they keep telling us — yet our law enforcement professionals don’t know how to combat terrorism.  (Thanks a bunch, CIA, FBI, the US Marshall Service, and everybody down the line.  You did your best keeping the country safe for these eight years, but it wasn’t your fault if no one told you this wasn’t a “law enforcement issue.”  Oh, and Interpol?  Go piss up a rope.)

America is home to the bravest, smartest, most decent people in the world, they keep telling us — but in order to stay safe, we’ll be happy to junk the foundations on which the republic was founded.

Next week should allow even more keening and wailing, when Holder testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Is there anyone in the Capitol who has the cajones to say that the American system of justice can withstand the threat these five men embody?

Committee chair Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was one of the few lawmakers to release as statement praising the Holder move today.

“I have always believed that the nation’s federal courts are capable of trying high profile terrorism and national security cases,” he said. “They have proven time and time again to be up to the job.”

“I hope these cases will move forward promptly,” Leahy added. “By trying them in our federal courts, we demonstrate to the world that the most powerful nation on earth also trusts its judicial system – a system respected around the world.”

And this was the guy that Cheney told to go do an anatomical impossibility to himself?