According to press reports, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has a popularity level in the polls somewhere in the neighborhood of 4%. Al Qaeda, one would hope, has an even more serious popularity problem, although in certain quarters of the American left don’t bet the ranch on it.
But the real question that needs to be asked is much more fundamental than whether someone is popular or not. The decision by President Obama to close Guantanamo Bay, followed closely by Pennsylvania Congressman Jack Murtha’s assertion that he would have no problem putting up al Qaeda terrorists in a minimum security prison in his congressional district — where they would be entitled to the same rights as your average American pickpocket — raises a very odd question.
Are we watching events unfold that actually have terrorists dedicated to the destruction of the United States — foreign citizens — getting more legal rights than an actual American citizen who happens also to be the sitting governor of his state? Is the Obama administration, headed by an Illinois lawyer who boasts of a degree from Harvard Law School — someone who until a mere five years ago also sat as a member of the Illinois State Senate — actually planning a “process” that will ensure basic constitutional rights for the likes of 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Are they really on the brink of giving Miranda warnings to a roster of others such as Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash, whose activities include such interesting time-fillers as “key operative” “key leader” “paymaster” and “bodyguard” in a group devoted to mass murder? The last a “bodyguard” to Osama bin Laden himself? All of this at the same time the Illinois State Senate is denying American citizen Rod Blagojevich the right to call witnesses as part of his defense? Because the federal government headed by Mr. Obama says so?
Whoa baby! Continue reading . . .
