Our political Quote of the Day comes from Dick Polman, who in a post that needs to be read in full contrasts what some Republicans used to say about trying terrorists in federal court before a Democrat was in the White House. Here’s a small part of it:
But never mind the ample track record of civilian-court prosecutions, and never mind whatever Giuliani said in the past. The real problem is his current argument (shared by the usual anti-Obama suspects), which suggests that the U.S. courts are not strong enough to handle these new prosecutions, and that the trial will become propaganda grist for the bad guys. (Over the weekend, this argument was seconded by that renowned genius of jurisprudence, Sarah Palin, who wrote on Facebook that Obama’s “atrocious decision” will give Mohammed “the opportunity to spew his hateful rhetoric.”)
In response, I simply ask: Why do these people have so little apparent faith in the American system of justice and the Constitution itself?
Of course such a trial will give Mohammed the opportunity to spew, but the terrorists are spewing all the time, in statements and video messages; they hardly need the excuse of a court trial to spew anew. Why are Giuliani and the other critics running scared? How come they have so little optimism that the American message would trump the terrorist message in the global marketplace of ideas? Shouldn’t they be eager to display our freedoms to the world, to advertise judicial fair play and the fundamental constitutional values that have made us great?
It was Ronald Reagan, after all, who believed that we couldn’t lose in any open contest of ideologies. It was the George W. Bush administration that prosecuted the alleged 20th 9/11 hijacker in a federal civilian court, prompting Giuliani to say of the proceedings,”I was in awe of our system.” Shouldn’t we all feel just as patriotic today?
Read it in full.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.