Friday, January 29, 2010

Change of Venue for Sheiky?

Of all Obama's boneheaded decisions--and heaven knows he's managed to cram a lot of them into his relatively brief time in office--the stupidest may be his plan to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his little helpers in a New York City courtoom. Now the White House may be backtracking on the gaffe (the trying Mo in NYC part, not the treating Mo, holy warrior, as though he were a common criminal part). From CNN:
Washington (CNN) -- The White House is considering moving the site of the September 11 attack trial from Manhattan if the U.S. Justice Department sees fit, senior administration officials confirmed Friday.
"Conversations have occurred within the administration to discuss contingency options should the possibility of a trial in Lower Manhattan be foreclosed upon by Congress or locally," a senior administration official said.

The turnabout comes after New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other politicians expressed great concern over the costs and disruption of holding the September 11 trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four accomplices at a courthouse near ground zero in Lower Manhattan.

White House officials said President Obama agrees with Attorney General Eric Holder's decision in November to try Mohammed in a civilian criminal court in the United States, not a military tribunal.

"Currently our federal jails hold hundreds of convicted terrorists, and the president's opinion has not changed on that," White House spokesman Bill Burton said Thursday.

White House officials said the decision about any possible alternate sites to try Mohammed and the others will come from the Justice Department.

As city officials and residents contemplated the staging of the trial in Manhattan, doubts emerged about the wisdom of the location...
Wisdom: a commondity that's in desperately short supply at the Obama White House (where there are plenty of "smart" people but not many--or, indeed, any--wise ones).

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