Democracy on the March

I love it when the Shrub gets angry! It means he's not getting his way which also means Democracy probably has prevailed. No, George, you don't get to try the detainees using evidence they can't see. No, George, you can't use coerced (read obtained by torture) evidence and you can't use hearsay.

His jaw clenches. You can see the muscles clenching. Well, King George says, if you won't get me what I want, I'll just not try them! I'll keep them forever! Constitution be damned, they're terrists! We need to try the guilty bastards so we can shoot them!

No, George, it doesn't work that way. Even captured on the battlefield, the fundamental principle of American justice is innocent until proven guilty. Some of these guys are there for wearing a Casio watch. Some are there because they were caught near the battlefield in green clothes. Some are there because someone with a grudge sold them for the bounty. Some, if they weren't terrorists before they came to your little shop of horrors, are now.

And I just love it when he's at a loss for words. There's no comparison, he says, between the extremists and the U. S. He's right. Our body count is much higher, something in the 50,000-100,000 range. They're not worth counting to the Shrub.