Dems and terror

The Obama administration, coming under fire for administering Miranda rights to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab just 50 minutes after questioning him about his attempted bombing on Christmas Day aboard a Northwest Airlines flight, has begun to rethink several key national security questions. This week we learned from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) that the White House is revisiting a plan to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay to a prison in Thomson, Ill. And we know from key Democrats, though the Department of Justice continues to deny it, that the trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed won't be taking place in New York City after all.

Just what the next move will be for the KSM trial, or the nearly 200 remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay, is a mystery. But in the face of criticism over Mirandizing Abdulmutallab, the administration has chosen pushback mode. Attorney General Eric Holder went on the offensive this week to defend the handling of Abdulmutallab, and the administration was hoping the news that Richard Reid, the shoe bomber and an American citizen, was Mirandized within minutes by the George W. Bush administration in 2001 would quiet the criticism.

Democrats in Congress are drowning because of healthcare reform they couldn't pass and the unpopularity of the stimulus program and the cap-and-trade bill House Democrats approved but that is now lying somewhere in a Senate white-paper recycling box. They know no jobs bill they pass can actually jumpstart hiring. They know they are set to take a beating in this fall's midterm elections. And now they know they can't defend the Obama administration on unpopular terror policy.

In my column this week, I noted that two Democrats — Sens. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and Jim Webb (Va.) — joined Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) this week to cut off funding for civilian trials for terror suspects like KSM and Abdulmutallab. Give it a few more weeks at most and there will be more joining them.

Polls show a healthy majority of Americans don't support giving terror suspects the same legal rights we are all afforded by the U.S. Constitution. The administration should realize that just like it turned out with healthcare reform, this issue can't be pushed on to the American people without their support.


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