What if Bin Laden Gets Habeas?

The din from John McCain and Barack Obama's "Dueling Terrorism Banjos" this week was swelling to an exasperating pitch, but Fred Thompson came to the rescue today, lulling today's conference call into a questionless stupor with his molasses-and-bourbon delivery of McCain talking points. Along the way, he demonstrated an ignorance of the definitions of the word "martyr," and suggested that the Supreme Court is engaged in an insurrection against the other 2 branches of government.

The whole thing has become a crashing bore for those of us with brain cells, as the entire enterprise uses a deliberate and fundamental misreading of Barack Obama's position on terrorism as its fulcrum.

Damn, I think I picked something up from Thompson. Anyway, the highlight for me was unloading the question I had wanted to ask Rudy Giuliani, but didn't get the chance to, on Barack Obama's assembled experts. From yesterday's conference call with Susan Rice, Greg Craig, and Adam Smith:

[Q] Hi this is, Tom [inaudible] quick question, [inaudible]. They mentioned Osama Bin Laden being granted habeas corpus rights and Rudie Juliani even said that he found it (inaudible) amazing I guess what I'm wonder is do you have any idea what Juliana and John McCain think is the worst thing that could happen (inaudible)He goes in front of a judge, and boom! What happens?

Weird transcript, I know. It's from one of those voice recognition programs that can never understand you when you're trying to pay your cable bill. I thought I'd leave it as is, since it's funnier that way, and who am I to argue with it?I really wanted to get Rudy's take on it, because I bet it would have been interesting, but that call was really short, and unlike Fred Thompson, lots of people want to talk to Rudy.

I had a pretty good idea that the answer would be some variation of, "The judge would bang the gavel, say a few words for the TV cameras, like Judge Larry from the Anna Nicole Smith hearing, and then the guards would drag him back to his cell."

The pleasant surprise here, though, was Susan Rice swooping in at the end to point out that all of this is a moot frakking point, because Bin Laden is still at large, and John McCain is too chicken to go into Pakistan to get him. (I added that last part. McCain actually says now that he wasn't criticizing Obama for wanting to go into Pakistan, only for saying he wanted to go into Pakistan.)

Anyway, here's the rest of the (humorously titled) Verbatim transcript of the exchange.

Well what would happen there is that you have ample ground to hold him and if (inaudible) none of this would even happen until Osama bin laden wound up either in Guantanamo or in the United States if we brought him back. If we brought him back if anyone (inaudible) Juliana or John McCain (inaubile) that they believe our (inaudible) osama bin laden saying there were no grounds whatsoever to hold him it is a ridiculous argument that distracts from the larger issues that we all have raised here

Congressman that's great now let me just add to that that there is (inaudible) which will respect osama bin laden and so that the hypothetical question that's being raised here is "hey if you capture him alive " he he is transported out of wherever he is (inaudible) captured (Guantanamo ) and then you can raise the question about Guantanamo. But I agree with congressman smith that I have no doubt that there will be no problems (inaudible) responsible for murdering 3,000 people

As you point out there is a authorization of the use of force to kill bin laden not occurred 7 years later under George Bush in fact our efforts in that regime have been (inaudible) and it was Barack Obama who made the point very forcefully (inaudible) that when he is president and we have actual intelligence about high (inaudible) al quida targets like bin laden and the host government is unable or unwilling to act that he will act and take the part in (inaudible) John McCain criticizes that approach and yet he suggests that others have a long (inaudible) approach-that's completely a distortion of reality of barrack obama's approach and it reveals a great deal about John McCain's approach