The timing by the White House was exquisite. On the very day that President Obama formally announced his campaign for re-election his attorney general removed a potentially thorny political obstacle which almost certainly would have been an issue in the campaign.
Attorney General Eric Holder said this week that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his cohorts will be tried, not in civilian court in New York, but before a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay Cuba.
It amounts to an astounding turnaround for the administration and the president, who back on his second day in office, signed an executive order calling for the closing of Guantanamo thus setting the stage for civilian trials for the terrorists.
But it turned out to be a big miscalculation for the president as members of Congress and most of the residents of New York howled in protest. Well now with a tough re-election race in front of him, the president has clearly decided to cut his losses on the issue of Guantanamo and the civilian trials.
Well political expediency may have motivated the president, but the decision, nevertheless, is a correct one.
Write and let me know what you think. I'm Bill Applegate.
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