The Secretary of Law

The Obama Administration's decision to formally announce the president's intention to seek the party's nomination in 2012 coming hours before the Attorney General's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in military court invites speculation about the actual reasons for going through with the latter, but before we talk about whether or not it was motivated for political reasons let's take a look at what the political reaction has been.

Jeff Sessions, the Republican from Alabama, said "while it is unfortunate that it took so long to make this announcement, I am pleased that the Obama Administration has finally heeded those who rebuked their decision and that the trial is being held where it belongs." Then he said Obama's initial plan to try them in civilian court was "built on the naive premise that softening America's image would somehow soften our enemies' resolve." Peter King called the decision a retroactive affirmation of George W. Bush's efficacy. And Mitch McConnell took advantage of the opportunity to say "the Obama Administration has actively sought to bring the 9/11 plotters into our communities," which he then quantified as a "horrible idea."

Democrats weren't a lot better, which is to say the ones with lines to the presidential agenda were made to contend with the same path the President's taken. Chuck Schumer, who has a constituency to think of, made a kind of admission that he'd been uncomfortable with the initial plan the whole time, and Lieberman, well, he did the president the favor of releasing a positive statement joint with John McCain. Patrick Leahy was alone in Senatorial outrage.

And the bloggers, or the voters, as I like to call them, were, well let me put it this way. Dahlia Lithwick at Slate wrote an article on Monday headlined "Cowardly, Stupid, and Tragically Wrong," and let me lessen the suspense, she wasn't talking about Paul Ryan.

This boils down to two basic reactions, either A. you were wrong from the start and now you're finally getting it right, or B. you have now proven definitively you are not the man I voted for. The A's wouldn't have voted for Obama regardless, whereas the likely situation for most of the B's is that they'll still vote Obama, but they'll do it without the illusory optimism that gave him the edge the first time. So politically motivated? Maybe. There are the voters, the 59% of them give or take that rely on polls to get their voices heard, who don't want Mohammed in this country at all, who think that trying him in civilian court makes him a civilian and not an enemy combatant, which makes this thing in Afghanistan a police action instead of a war. Let's talk about those people for a second.

Obviously this isn't the only reason. As far as our justice system is concerned we've already done enough to Mohammed to warrant his case's dismissal. But we're dealing with the case our Attorney General called the defining one of his career. We're dealing with the architect of the 9/11 attack. We're dealing with someone who admitted to 31 counts of terrorism against the United States and its allies. Our justice system is tremendous, the envy of the world, the fairest system of adjudication ever conceived, sure, dude is still getting tried. No judge, jury or politician in the United States is irresponsible enough to see him acquitted before his trial begins. No, what's brought out the voices is the symbolism. And the very foundation of the argument has expanded to fit the size of these post-terror symbolic debates: liberty versus safety, the establishment versus the fringe, civil rights versus American sovereignty, America versus Terror, etc....

There is also, however, the symbolism of the terrorism itself to consider. In 2001 the United States was attacked by a body of individuals trying to start a war. "When we made any war against America," Mohammed confirmed in 2007, "we are jackals fighting in the nights. I consider myself, for what you are doing, a religious thing as you consider us fundamentalist. So we derive from religious leading that we consider we and George Washington doing same thing."

We agreed. We went to war. But I wonder if by providing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with a jury of Americans, we wouldn't have sent the message that his whole career, they're whole life, isn't even that big a deal to us. Like we can't even be bothered to make a war with them.

We'd still be at war of course. But just in reality.