KSM Takes Manhattan

Bill Kristol makes a striking point about Attorney General Eric Holder's description of the upcoming trial in New York City of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted mastermind of 9/11, as the "Trial of the Century."

That phrase, in colloquial usage, refers to a media fire-storm type trial that rivets the nation, often for the same reasons a train wreck commands attention. The usual result of such an incendiary spectacle is something less than a trial and more like a circus. Think "O. J. Simpson" here, and you'll get the idea.

This nicely exposes the mind-set of the Administration regarding the erstwhile war between America and its enemies. This trial is not about justice or the defense of America against an implacable foe. If it were, then the military commissions - approved by the Supreme Court and enacted into legislation by Congress, with the support of then Senator Obama - would have sufficed. This is about a public spectacle, because to this Administration, success is gaged in terms of the amount of media coverage it commands and the number of news cycles it saturates with the President's picture and rhetoric.

This is foreign policy as conducted by a Hollywood PR expert. Military commissions in Cuba? "Puhleeeze! How am I going to get this covered by anyone? Which major media outlet will send cameras to that dreary place? New York, Baby! The Big Apple is the place! We'll get 'em to preempt Oprah with this one!"