The Bill O’Reilly video we’ve all been waiting for…
At long last, Bill O’Reilly tells us how the American right-wing really feels.
While hosting Fox legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano, O’Reilly just didn’t want to hear that the 9-11 trials were coming to New York because the Constitution requires that this is how it is supposed to happen. Says Bill-O, ‘I don’t care about the Constitution!”
Really…he said it. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.
So much for ’strict constructionist’. Apparently, sticking with the Constitution is only required when the PalInistas find it useful. To do otherwise makes you, according to O’Reilly, a ‘pinhead.’
But, not to worry. Karl Rove is keeping the faith. Also appearing on Fox News, Rove referred to the trials as ‘ a long standing plot by the Obama administration’s “left-wing lawyers who do not love America.”
And this guy used to sit next to the President of the United States…in the White House.
That’s enough for this pinhead.
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The problem is that Obama’s attitude towards the Constitution is too similar to O’Reilly’s.
As Glenn Greenwald notes:
I think he has a point with respect to the group of terrorists charged with attacking the USS Cole who are going to be tried by the Military Tribune due to questionable evidence thanks to torture. However, there is a very big difference – Article III of the Constitution requires a trial at the place of a crime when that crime is committed within the USA. This is the case, certainly, with respect to the 911 crimes.
In response to another comment. See in context »With respect to crimes committed outside the USA, as is the case with the USS Cole accused terrorists, the Constitution leaves it to Congress to set the rules. So, trying them in a military tribunal is not a violation.
Unfortunately, people are suspect because we know the circumstances of this different group which is not being tried in the States. But- it is not a Constitutional violation.
With respect to those where the evidence is skimpy, what we’ve seen so far would indicate that Greenwald is wrong. As i wrote the other day, so far, 30 Gitmo detainees have been set free by Writs of Habeas Corpus. In these cases the fed. crt. judges in DC ruled that there was insufficient evidence to hold them.
There you have it folks – right from the horse’s ass!
I meant O’Reilly – not you, jasong.
I’m with you regarding the other O.
In response to another comment. See in context »I decided to call out the second one rather than leave you hanging with Jasong!!
But read my comment back to him. While we do know there is some questionable evidence with respect to the Cole terrorists that are being tried via military tribune, because that crime was committed outside the USA, Obama is acting correctly per the Constitution.
“I decided to call out the second one rather than leave you hanging with Jasong!!”
That’s what I like about you, Rick – even when we disagree, you have my back. Thanks.
In response to another comment. See in context »It seems there is an automatic assumption that a guilty terrorist would prefer a US criminal trial to an unlimited detention in gitmo or a military tribunal, which begets the further assumption that it would be more likely to win a defense or obtain a less harsh penalty from the US criminal trial.
As far as I know, these terror charges are multiple capital crimes, punishable by death or many life without parole max security sentences. We give these types of sentences out on a near daily basis here in the US, for garden variety capital crimes, there’s even some convincing evidence that our sentences can be rather harsh and that innocent people can be incarcerated for life or executed.
The people who got scooped up in some distant Pakistani village for committing a capital crime in the US would need to have some solid evidence against them to make it even remotely worthwhile to drag them back to Gitmo, house and feed them for years and be able to prove their guilt, right?
If the people we want to punish got picked up on just some second hand accounts, or a confession after a long holding period and we are worried the charges won’t stick in an open American court, the problem isn’t that the US court system affords the defendants to much due process (like I said we still hang’em high after all the due process they can eat) the problem is actually the ineffectiveness and the damage caused by the arrests of people who have a low likleyhood of being guilty.
Just like in an American city, arresting innocent people for crimes they did not commit makes the public less safe, and not just for the ones being arrested – everyone. Resources are squandered, communities turn against each other, law enforcement loses respect, the integrity of past cases is called into question.
For some reason when the rightwingers go all “we can’t let them into our lily white criminal justice system – that would be pampering them, and we’d have to actually prove they were guilty” the left falls right into the trap and starts defending the suspects right to due process in a way that seemingly acknowledges the favorable outcome of the military tribunals in comparison only claiming they wouldn’t be fair to the defendant.
The real story is it’s a total kick in the crotch to Americans to unleash some guys with tape recorders, black helicopters and secret torture prisons on the world and let the results be scripted and orchestrated by the very people who claim they found some really bad people and killing or capturing these six or eight hundred humans is going to make the American Homeland so much safer.
This is actually a pretty good explanation of the American justice system.
In response to another comment. See in context »I think you’ve got a very good point here. Because we see things like the OJ trial on TV, everyone figures that the system is somehow overly protective of defendants. It’s suppose to give the benefit to defendants because nobody is supposed to be convicted unless 12 people can decide beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is guilt. But the fact is that the overwhelming number of people who stand trial for criminal charges are convicted of those charges. It’s not like TV.
About 70% of all those charged with a felony agree to a guilty plea pursuant to a deal prior to trial. Of the 30% who go to trial, somewhere between 70-75% are convicted. That leaves less than 10% who are found not-guilty or have their case dismissed before it goes to trial.
Well, Rick, pretty clearly, Bill O’Reilly isn’t interested in justice or he would have a better opinion of the constitution. But, let’s face it, the Republican howling about the NY trials isn’t really about the trials; it’s about exploiting pinheads’ emotions for political gain. If this clip doesn’t prove it, then the thorough thrashing that Jon Stewart gave Giuliani does.
yup.
In response to another comment. See in context »After 9/11 the government and most of the people were not interested in justice: We wanted vengeance.
It was our system of justice that saved us from ourselves. We are back on the right track, it is an ugly and bumpy road but it is the road that will lead us back to a nation of laws.
O’Reilly is NOT part of the right wing there genius as he is an Independent. So much for you doing your homework. But in your light doing homework doesn’t matter. Some objective journalism indeed.