It occurred to me on my drive to work today, that Obama’s statements yesterday would only make it harder to put terrorists on in New York City. He referred to, basically, ‘a fair trial and a speedy execution’. No lawyer in the world would neglect to bring this up at trial.
A quick check now reveals I wasn’t the first to think of this (I doubted I had been, but hadn’t heard it brought up yet). Here’s Andy McCarthy from NRO:
In a meeting with the press in China, President Obama said that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be “convicted” and had “the death penalty applied to him” . . . and then said he wasn’t “pre-judging” the case. He made the second statement after it was pointed out to him — by NBC’s Chuck Todd — that the first statement would be taken as the president’s interfering in the trial process. Obama said that wasn’t his intention. I’m sure it wasn’t — he’s trying to contain the political damage caused by his decision — but that won’t matter. He has given the defense its first motion that the executive branch, indeed the president himself, is tainting the jury pool. Nice work.
Of course, if the entire purpose of this exercise has nothing to do with justice, just another show to placate the masses (that’s you and I, in case you’re not keeping up), then this makes perfect sense. Maybe they’ve already arranged for some “nutcase” to shoot KSM on the courthouse steps. Wouldn’t that play nicely on the evening news – and maybe be timely enough to distract us from the health care/bailouts/cap’n’tax issues.
Bread and circuses, anyone?