not where it is now today. i mean, many changes have taken place. we believe, and many members, most members, the bill we put in today is a bipartisan bill, republican, democrats, it ought to be done on a military base and ought to be done through the military. here s what david axelrod, the white house adviser, said about that on meet the press this weekend. watch. when we tried richard reid the shoe bomber in the civilian courts for his crime, when we tried the 20th bomber on 9/11 conspirator, moussaoui in virginia for his crime, nobody said anything. congressman, did you say anything about moussaoui or richard reid? yeah, the moussaoui trial went well but it went on for four years and we have learned a lot from t down in alexandria at that time, there was not a hotel, there was not the patent and trademark office, there was not the carlyle condominium. secondly, the war on terror has changed quite dramatically since then. the administration sent six people who were in guan
why didn t we have all these concerns when the moussaoui trial was taking place in virginia? where are all these conservatives why weren t they complaining about the location of that trial and the way it was handled? they weren t. i absolutely agree that sort of at the level of what does this do for the international reputation of america? i think a civilian trial would send a really, really powerful signal. and what i think americans sometimes might miss is, the rest of the world wants america to be a democracy. but maybe doesn t fully understand what american democracy means. and a visible example of it i think would be very, very powerful. i wanted to respond quickly to sam s points about the costs. i think sam didn t cite it as his own argument, but an argument he s heard in his reporting, and i think that is a very, very specious argument. we are now in a time when the government has spent, as you well know, more than $700 billion to bail out wall street. so i think that it s
trial of alleged 9/11 terrorists. wyoming senator john barrasso is one of them kind enough to join us tonight. senator, good have to you with us. senator, i just want to point out something from the mcclatchey newspapers. they point out the cans vags advocacy group in washington says civilian courts have convicted more than 200 accused terrorists since 2001 attacks while military commissions created by congress have convicted only three. what s wrong with ksm in a civilian court? are you afraid that we wouldn t get justice? this is wrong for a number of reasons. the cost issue, the security issue, and it s just not appropriate. you talked about that large number. those aren t people that actually attacked the united states. that s not al qaeda terrorists. those are people who may have perjured themselves or been issues of illegal immigration. we re not talking about the terrorists who have come here to kill us and who have killed
welcome back to the ed show. and thanks for watching tonight. we ve seen this movie before. obama administration makes a bold move on terrorism putting the 9/11 mastermind on trial for all of the world to see in an american courtroom in lower manhattan. but that s not good enough. it would send a message that america is not afraid. not of a couple of guys in handcuffs, and not of our own judicial system. the way we know it can work. but the republicans, instead of standing with the president, have chosen to attack him with the same old line that he s weak on terror. of course, joe lieberman got on-board and so did some conservative democrats who were scared in their hometown when it comes to elections and re-elections. so they joined with a group of republican senators who want to block funding for any civilian
it is you have been. karen, your response? democrats in new york are calling on president obama to move this ksm trial. michael bloom bettered is hardly a republican out there with republican talking points. he left the republican party. the member of congress who represents manhattan wants this trial moved. you know, the bigger i think political picture here is that how much political capital is president obama going to burn on this issue? he s already burned through a lot of political capital in his first year. and he has a long way to go from here to november and the end of the year to get through some sort of tmdomestic agenda. how much is president obama really going to stand up and fight for his attorney general? i don t think he will. karen, if it s the wrong thing to do, then why don t the republicans allow the president to fall on his sword with this decision because the conviction rate in civilian court is far