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Infected Worldmind

Politics and Culture. A Tonic.

Who am I?

I'm general counsel for a medium-sized tax-exempt organization that helps court-involved and other at-risk populations clear barriers to success in the community.

I'm also a development/fundraising professional and provide legal advice and guidance to start-up entertainment firms.

I'm a contributor to Funnybook Babylon and my ever-expanding bookshelf is here. I infrequently write about food and take pictures.

I'm also the happiest newlywed in the world.

That's everything.

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An administration that would not fight for its policy preference, that dawdled so long that it gave the opposition time to rally against its policies, that announced New York as a trial venue and then didn’t move any defendants there, that sat on the question for a year without action, and that then would not even threaten a veto of the legislation which now requires this disposition does not get to complain about having its hands forced. It made decisions about what was important to it and what it was willing to fight for: health care, fiscal stimulus, financial reform. It also made decisions about what wasn’t important to it and what it wasn’t willing to fight for. As much as I agree with Holder about the merits of many of his points, the time to have pushed them is long past. The question now is whether the administration will stop trying to wash its hands of the trial it will, in fact, now conduct.

-Benjamin Wittes, on Attorney General Eric Holder’s recently announced decision that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (and other detainees charged with planning the 9/11 terror attacks) will be tried in military commissions instead of civilian Article III courts, a reversal of his earlier decision. In his prepared statement, Holder suggested that his decision was essentially forced upon him by Congress, which acted to block any civilian trial in the United States. Adam Serwer reported that Holder was “visibly disappointed and even angry” during the press conference. I have some sympathy for Holder, but none for the Obama administration. This is a battle (for prosecutorial discretion and the rule of law) that it chose not to fight.

It’s times like this that I recall a great post by Jack Balkin in which he noted:

“Obama has played the same role with respect to the National Surveillance State that Eisenhower played with respect to the New Deal and the administrative state, and Nixon played with respect to the Great Society and the welfare state. Each President established a bi-partisan consensus and gave bi-partisan legitimation to certain features of national state building.”

Yeah, 2008 was a long time ago. I think the NY Times said it best: Cowardice Blocks the 9/11 Trial.