Posted by
Michael Goodell on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 11:48:11 AM
Leonard Pitts Jr. is a reliably leftist columnist with an outsized ego. He is so full of himself that he makes Barack Obama seem humble, or even self-effacing by comparison. Not only is Pitts always right, but he possesses the gift of divination. He can explain what his critics really mean, and what they are actually thinking when they disagree with him.
Take, for example, his column endorsing the decision to try self-confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York City courtroom. This decision, ostensibly made by Attorney General Eric Holder, was met with widespread scorn and disbelief. Pitts wrote that critics cited “questions of security, fears of acquittal (and) other obfuscatory concerns.”
Obfuscatory concerns? By this Pitts implies that there are no legitimate reasons to oppose this arbitrary sop to the far left and latest attempt to appease those who would destroy us. Indeed, Pitts asserts, if the critics “would be honest with themselves, they’d admit” that the real reason for their opposition is the desire to see Mohammad denied the rights guaranteed Americans by the US Constitution. They have a visceral, irrational need to see him punished.
“But you have to wonder,” Pitts writes. “Are our emotional needs the most important consideration here? It’s worth remembering that even the . . . leaders of the Nazi regime found themselves facing not summary execution, but a trial before a military tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.”
This is a standard leftist trope to justify trying Mohammad et al. in New York, that even the Nazis received a trial. Pitts is the first to admit that the trial they received was under the auspices of a military tribunal. It is the height of absurdity to rely on this argument, because it was precisely that, a military tribunal, that Mohammad was facing when the Boy King ascended to the throne. There was no talk of a summary execution. Pitts came up with that one all by himself. Perhaps because, given his gift of divination, he knew what the judge, jury and attorneys weren’t willing to admit to themselves.
There was a military tribunal underway. Mohammad had admitted his guilt and asked to be executed. Obama put a stop to this, and all other military tribunals, presumably because, having commenced under the previous administration, they could not be fair. But Obama offers a curious view of what is fair. He has stated that Mohammad will be found guilty, and will be executed. Holder has no doubt that Mohammad will be convicted. On what basis? Because, he explained, he informed his prosecutors that “Failure is not an option.” Furthermore, the Administration has assured us that even if Mohammad is acquitted, he will remain in custody
Holding a trial in which conviction is a foregone conclusion has not historically been a defining characteristic of the American criminal justice system. Rather, it has much more in common with the show trials mounted under Stalin. While the quality of his writing is laughable enough, the soundness of Pitts’ conclusion is even more worthy of derision: “We need this trial more than Mohammad does. For all its risks–and they are real–it offers a prize worth risking for: the promise of feeling like Americans again.”