The Trouble With Harry Reid

Apparently, our nation's maximum security prisons are a joke. The mass murderers and rapists who dwell in their halls might, at any moment, make a splashy, all too easy jail break--ala Nicholas Cage and Co. in the Hollywood blockbuster "Con Air"--and be back out terrorizing our citizenry before you can say "habeus corpus." If you are unlucky enough to live in a state that houses violent felons (and who isn't?) you might consider barricading the door for the inevitable life or death throw-down when the jailbirds finally fly the coop. Don't believe me? Just ask Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

At a press conference yesterday at which he was asked about closing Guantanamo Bay prison and transferring the inmates to US facilities, the following exchange unfolded:

REID: I'm saying that the United States Senate, Democrats and Republicans, do not want terrorists to be released in the United States. That's very clear.

QUESTION: No one's talking about releasing them. We're talking about putting them in prison somewhere in the United States.

REID: Can't put them in prison unless you release them.

QUESTION: Sir, are you going to clarify that a little bit?

REID: I can't make it any more clear than the statement I have given you. We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States.

[...]

QUESTION: But Senator, Senator, it's not that you're not being clear when you say you don't want them released. But could you say-would you be all right with them being transferred to an American prison?

REID: Not in the United States.

Later in the day, Reid's office sent out a clarifying statement on why the Majority Leader seemed to be siding with the Not-In-My-Backyard position held by the likes of Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe:

President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain, Secretary Colin Powell, President Obama and I all agree - Guantanamo must be closed...

...Let me be clear: Democrats will not move to close Guantanamo without a responsible plan in place to ensure Americans' safety. And we will never allow a terrorist to be released into the United States.

So, does this mean that if we brought everybody over from Guantanamo that we'd legally have to free them before proper U.S. trials could be arranged? Or course not. Defendants deemed a danger to the public are routinely held without bail in our legal system. Perhaps Inhofe and Reid remember the Oklahoma City Bombing, for instance. Or the trial and subsequent incarceration (in Colorado) of Ramzi Yousef.

So what has Reid so spooked? Is he just watching too many movies?




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