The KSM Civilian Federal Trial Unicorn

Promised. Not delivered.

But let's not kid ourselves who is at fault for this broken promise. While the President and the Attorney General bear tremendous responsibility for it, you cannot excuse the cowardice of the political factions in this country who would use such a trial as an excuse to fan the flames of cultural panic, nationalist fear, and sectarian hatred all over America.

They are the same people who manufactured a controversey about a "Ground Zero Mosque," which was neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero, which an issue last summer (several of whom are running for President) to help them win elections through demagoguery. They are the people who, fearing the political fallout from that manufacture, choose to bow or cower before the altar of cultural panic instead of leading the nation away from it.

It is a shame that, when it comes to big decisions, the political calculus must include expectations of issue demagoguery by the opposition and allies. What is even more of a shame is that those calculations show the manufacture of fear to be more powerful than doing things the way they ought to be done.

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