Mister Dithers

I don't know about you, but one-plus years after Obama's inauguration, I'm already suffering from “Eric Holder fatigue”. Every time I see this guy's name at the top of a news item, I'm like, “Oh man, what's this clown up to now?” And I suppose that every administration has to have its court jester – you know, that unofficial office that James Watt held under Reagan, or that Joycelyn Elders held under Clinton. These are people who manage to walk around with one foot in their mouth and their head firmly wedged up their butt – a feat that would defy the talents of even the most highly-trained Chinese contortionist.

The problem comes when the court jester – unlike the vice president, for example, who has no authority or power, and who really is the official fool in most administrations – holds an office that actually carries some clout. And in the law-obsessed society of today, no office is more threatening, or more dangerous, than that of attorney general. That's why this post is normally given to only the most upstanding, righteous, honest, intelligent, and rational people available – people like John Mitchell, Ed Meese, Janet Reno, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, and... oy, pardon me while I barf. So yeah, maybe the office is a sheltered workshop after all. But that shouldn't keep us from protesting when it's abused. In the current situation, it's not so much a matter of danger to the citizenry as the endless dithering about where to try the 9/11 conspirators, chief among them (but not the only one, contrary to most news reports) being the dude known only as KSM. Will it be a military trial, or a civilian one? Will it be held at the scene of the crime, or as far from there as possible? Is it a breath mint, or a candy mint? No one seems to know – least of all the attorney general, who is supposedly in charge of this whole thing. So he continues to play games with the tender feelings of the likes of Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani. Obviously, there's going to be a “security problem” no matter where the trial is held – unless, of course, they hold it in Guantanamo, which is pretty much what should have been decided eons ago.

Of course, another thing impacting on this decision is the question, what, exactly, did these guys do that was so wrong? Crazy, you say? Well, think about it. The Obama administration represents the triumph of liberalism, which, among other things, entails a completely relativistic world view, in which there is no such thing as evil, "bad" and "good" are just "social constructs" and matters of opinion, and wrongdoers are typically considered to be suffering from no more than a “social disease” (as the song from “West Side Story” says). And part of this mind set – a key part, I would say – is the by-now-familiar process of blaming the victim and coddling the “perp”. The instant a suspect is apprehended the legal figure-ground relationship reverses itself, and we find out that the criminal has all the rights, and the victims have next to none. And this is the way things ought to be, according to liberals – it's a sort of affirmative action, “leveling the playing field”, giving everyone “a piece of the pie”, and so on. Criminals become celebrities, as in the days of Prohibition... and victims become... well, just losers, basically. They should have known better than to get in the way of that bullet (which the gun fired all by itself, of course). So now, all of a sudden, we expect people brought up on a steady diet of moral relativism to get “absolute” and develop a strange new respect for law and order, and universal standards of behavior. (Let's not go so far as to talk about Natural Law – you know, that thing that scuttled Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination, courtesy of Ted Kennedy.) Among the “extenuating circumstances” for KSM & Co. might be that they had a “deprived childhood” (even though most of the terrorists were solidly middle-class) – or that they suffered “childhood abuse” -- which would certainly gain traction considering they were all brought up in a “theocracy”. There could be any number of perfectly good reasons why they did what they did – except for the one Ron Paul cited, namely “They're over here because we're over there” -- the only reason that makes any sense. But hey, what if they took him seriously? Then they would have to blame every past administration all the way back to when oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia (predating the founding of the State of Israel by a mile, I might add). But even that's not too far-fetched, since we're still apologizing for slavery and for mistreatment of the Indians, women, gays, the handicapped, and so on. (Hell, we spent all of 1992 apologizing for Columbus' discovery of America!) What it ultimately boils down to is, “stuff happens”, and I would expect KSM's defense team to consider that a key element in their pleading. They know, after all, to whom they are speaking, since they are part of the system. And yet Holder, on other occasions, has assured us that the defendants will, without a doubt, be found guilty, because... well, just because, that's all. I wonder how much money he bet that O.J. would be acquitted? Clearly the whole idea of a trial is nothing more than an annoyance – and yet one must keep up appearances. It surely wouldn't do to be like China, where “a prompt and speedy trial” is still very much a reality – as is the execution that follows soon after. No, in our system of justice dithering is Job One. After all, isn't Michael Skakel, the black sheep of the extended Kennedy clan (assuming that's not a redundancy) still filing appeals, a good 35 years after his alleged crime? In our enlightened system, it's not over until its over – which means, until the accused dies a natural death. And even then it's not over, as witness the string of posthumous pardons that are constantly being sought after. I guess ultimately, in the longest of long runs, everyone will be pardoned and set free – except for Confederates, “racists”, and “fascists”. And this ought to be some comfort to KSM... except, wait, he actually _wants_ to be tried, convicted, and executed, thereby qualifying as a martyr in the jihad pantheon. I guess Holder can't win after all -- he's trapped in a world he helped make.