Lawrence O'Donnell Meltdown

The GF is about two minutes away from being ready to go out to dinner, so you'll have to wait 'till I've had a chance to look at it again.

But you can respond to my posting of Gibbs transcript in the mean time.

 

Come on, desk. You know that any fuckup by a Republican administration is always the fault of whatever Democratic administration preceded it. Nothing's ever these guys' fault. Ever.

 

I will respond, unlike you. I cannot believe Gibbs said that. Obviously, fail on his part. We have been running many stories in the Free Press, via our SOURCES, that the Christmas Day bomb suspect has been leaking like a sieve for weeks. I mean, he's an idiot, of course, since he was given Miranda but he's a 23-year-old rich boy looking at a possible death penalty, which tends to change your views on terrorism.

 

Gee, a press secretary saying something he later regrets. That's never happened before, huh?

 

Well, it was never a daily occurrence before as it is now.

 

As usual, your tendency to exaggerate takes a legitimate point and renders it useless. Thanks for stopping by though, Tony. Don't ever stop being you!!

 

Complete denial is one of the absolute go-to clubs in the prevailing Tool Handbook. Nothing new, there.

 

What was the question? You keep telling me to "read up on" military trials.

I'm guessing you're referencing the fact that two of the three people tried & convicted were given short sentences and are now no longer detained.

OK. What does that prove? I would think it would prove to you that the Military trials are fair and not the kangaroo courts that many on the left have portrayed them to be.

There's also no guarantee that the same issues -- especially in these specific cases -- that resulted in short sentences wouldn't have resulted in the same outcome in a civil trial.

The bigger issue is that intelligence -- information about intelligence gathering & intelligence assets -- would need to be turned over to the defense and potentially aired in open court in a civil trial. That would be a disaster.

 

OK, how about my question?

 

C'mon. When have I not responded?

I appreciate that.

The reporting that I saw (haven't read the Free Press) indicates that their were weeks when he didn't cooperate. That's lot of time lost.

Now, in reference to the PDB, I probably responded to quickly without reading it carefully enough.

What would you do with this line:

It looks like they're talking about a three year old report, from a foreign intelligence service, that they were unable to confirm.

No indication of the names of the attackers, the timing of such an attack, the place where it was being planned, where the funding was coming from, or where it would be launched from. No indication of the potential nationality of the attackers either.

Could security have been increased? Yes. I wish it was, but for how long? To what degree? What do you communicate to the general public?

How do you balance security vs. scaring people away from travel based on an unconfirmed report from three years prior?

Hindsight is obviously 20/20.

This is very different from what we knew prior to the Holiday Bomber.

We had his name from his father. We knew from intercepts that "the Nigerian" was planning on being used in an attack. His name was picked up in one intercept.

Simply putting him on a no-fly list or revoking his Visa would have thwarted the attack.

 

Patience, Magic, patience.

I can only answer one question at a time.

 

The issue, YF, is that there have been over 300 terrorism convictions in civilian trials. Versus only a few in military trials, which had to be black-flagged in 2006 because the folks who organized them fucked up. I can understand why you'd dodge that issue ... but there's the record.

Do a little research on the military lawyers who resigned from the commission rather than participate in what many of them felt were sham trials.

You can start with Maj. Robert Preston, an Air Force PROSECUTOR who said:

I consider the insistence on pressing ahead with cases that would be marginal even if properly prepared to be a severe threat to the reputation of the military justice system and even a fraud on the American people.
Surely they don't expect that this fairly half-arsed effort is all that we have been able to put together after all this time.
...After all, writing a motion saying that the process will be full and fair when you don't really believe it is kind of hard, particularly when you want to call yourself an officer and lawyer.

When the prosecutors think the system is rigged, then you've got major problems. I know you'd love to point and say "But..but ...but the LEFT is the only one saying these things!!"

But you'd be wrong.

Let's see if the problems that led to the decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld have been rectified. If they have, then I'd be more than willing to look at the tribunals and give them a shot.

As for the red herring that civilian trials would compromise intelligence... got any proof?