If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were used in a "Willie Horton" type ad

[alp227]

In the wake of the news that Attorney General Eric Holder will try the suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a military tribunal rather than federal court, I wonder if there'd be a Willie Horton-type ad launched in 2012 had Holder chosen to try KSM in federal court. Holder's proposal to do so raised a ruckus on the right back in the fall of 2009. The Willie Horton ad was run by an independent PAC in August 1988 linking Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, at the time the governor of Massachusetts, to the weekend furloughs of convicted murderer Horton (who committed additional violent crimes when on furlough).

These type of ads play to the "low-information" independent voters (as Thom Hartmann put it, March 30, 2011 program, 1 hr 19 min mark) who can get easily swayed by emotional appeal.

Here's how a theoretical Willie Horton ad would run had Holder tried KSM in federal court to the tune of Willie Horton:

"<2012 Republican candidate> on terror. supports military tribunals for terrorism suspects. Obama not only opposes military tribunals, he even allowed terrorists clearly engaging in war against America to be tried in civilian court. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the most deadly terrorist attack in US history. Despite abundant evidence of war crimes, Obama afforded Mohammed the right to a fair trial on our soil. Allowing terrorists into our courts: Obama on terrorism."

While world opinion may be sour in response to the KSM decision (and a campaign promise to close Guantanamo not fulfilled), do realize the damaging implications of this type of campaign ad. Interestingly enough, the "National Security PAC" created the Horton ad. Wonder if it would've resurrected for a KSM ad.

[Ken Burch]

1. If the Bushies wanted KSM tried in a military tribunal, they should have done it themselves

There's no reason why we couldn't just left his case in abeyance as they did.

The whole point of the Bushies NOT dealing with KSM themselves was to force Obama or any other Dem to endorse the tribunals. We should never have taken the bait, and they'll find some other way to use this against themselves anyway.

This is too much like the arguments that we had to disgrace ourselves by nominating pro-death penalty candidates so that they could do "the other things we care so much about". That just gave us Bill Clinton, who did NONE of the things we cared about, and Jerry Brown, whose supporters have now reduced themselves to saying "it's enough that it's a Democratic governor making the cuts", and thus have created a situation where we already know Brown can do nothing progressive at all during his entire term(since doing progressive things requires at least some ability to spend money and the occasion stand of solidarity with actual poor people).