Trying Terrorists

Michael Gerson at the Washington Post notes that President Obama was not consulted by Attorney General Holder on the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorsts in New York:

Second, we have learned since the announcement that Holder apparently did not consult Obama before deciding to bring the Sept. 11 terrorists back to Ground Zero. No further evidence is necessary that Holder regards the war on terrorism as a law enforcement matter. In a decision with obvious national security implications, the attorney general consulted with neither the commander in chief nor the secretary of defense. He employed a process that might be more appropriately applied to the trial of a mafia kingpin or a serial killer.


And what a process. In an interview on Jim Lehrer’s NewsHour, Holder described consulting with Justice and Defense department prosecutors and staffers. The rest of the interview deserves to be quoted at length:

Lehrer: Did you run [the decision] by President Obama?

Holder: Just informed him of the decision….

Lehrer: So you just told him what your decision was; you didn’t say, “What do you think about it, Mr. President?”

Holder: Nope. Told him last night, or had relayed to him what I was going to do last night while he was on Air Force One on his way to Asia.

Lehrer: Did you talk to anybody outside the government?

Holder: I talked to my wife --

Lehrer: Yes? Okay.

Holder: -- about what she thought. And I actually talked to my brother, who’s a Port Authority police officer who served --

Lehrer: Oh, is that right? Yes.

Holder: -- in New York, New Jersey, and who lost friends and colleagues on 9/11 in the towers. And I talked to them about what -- was it appropriate to bring it in New York, the symbolic significance of it, the possibility of getting a good and fair, detached jury.

Yeah, okay. So Holder -- in making a decision about a leader from an international terrorist organization currently in combat with American troops abroad -- consulted with his wife and brother. And not, apparently, about the possibility of another attack on America, but about symbolism and jury selection. Do we have any reason to trust Holder’s strategic judgment on the nature of the global terrorist threat? Has he said or done anything recently to increase that trust?

 One terrorist attack in New York and Holder has to go.

Peggy Noonan is right: the Obama administration needs adult supervision.