the New York Times New York Times editorial today is a nifty little bit of hyperbole entitled “Guilty as Ordered”. The editors seem to think that the military tribunal that found Osama bin laden’s former driver guilty of supporting terrorists was a fait accompli. Here’s the lede in all its accusatory glory:
Now that was a real nail-biter. The court designed by the White House and its Congressional enablers to guarantee convictions of high-profile detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — using evidence obtained by torture and secret evidence as desired — has held its first trial. It produced … a guilty verdict.
It also produced a not guilty verdict on the most serious charge, the one that could have gotten Hamdan the death penalty. But why let that inconvenient fact stand in the way of a good haranguing?
The phrase “Congressional enablers” is an interesting one, too. It implies that there was some small group of Congressmen backing the President’s play all the way. However, when you look at the House and Senate votes, you see that the overwhelming majority voted for the Military Connissions Act of 2006 (the law that established and set up the rules for the tribunal). The House approved the bill 250-170-12, a 57 percent approval. The Senate approved it by such a wide margin that it came nearly one vote short of a 2/3 majority. If anyone’s out of touch on this issue, it’s the New York Times editorial board.
Essentially, the New York Times believes that we should try Islamist terrorists in our criminal courts, giving them full Constitutional rights. They can’t get that, so they invent an impossible conspiracy involving the White House, the military, two-thirds of the Senate and most of the House of Representatives designed to frame completely innocent Arab men. It has to be that way for the Times editors because if they look at the situation realistically, they’ll see just how far out their position is.
Conspiracy theories are fun when they’re the plot of an episode of The X Files. When they’re the deeply-held position of the editorial board of the largest newspaper in the world, they’re pathetic and a little disturbing.
Tags: Fighting the Islamists, Guantanamo Bay, Media Bias, President George Bush
