Was it really only two days ago that Barack Obama and the GOP engaged with each other in that remarkable Q&A session in Baltimore? Friday night I was ecstatic, but in the two days since, I haven’t seen much of that savvy, perceptive, focused POTUS. Instead, I’ve seen one news item after another that makes me wonder where that president went to.
- Robert Gibbs told CNN today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was “likely to be executed after being tried and convicted.” (That is CNN’s paraphrase — I’m assuming they would not have paraphrased it like that if it was not what he said.) It’s depressing enough that Gibbs is publicly speaking about the trial that is supposed to be a shining example of our open, law-abiding democracy as though it were a show trial in a kangaroo court, but what’s even more dispiriting is that even Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds noticed the irony.
- Further to the matter of KSM’s trial, Robert Gibbs, in that same CNN interview, refused to confirm that KSM would still be tried in a civilian court, now that NYC has withdrawn its suport for the trial to be held there.
- Rahm Emanuel appears to be trying to finish off the almost dead body of health care reform, and the president is not exactly sending clear signals about whether that’s okay with him or not.
- The long-awaited ethics report from the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Conduct is about to come out and it will say that John Yoo and Jay Bybee should not face legal consequences for giving the Bush White House and the C.I.A. legal cover to set up and run a torture program against detainees in the “war on terror.”
The Q&A afterglow is well and truly done and gone.
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