From Tuesday’s Morning Jolt:

Start Spreading the News: He’s Not Leaving Today
Hey, look who’s getting a military tribunal after all: “Attorney General Eric Holder today announced that self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and his four alleged co-conspirators will be tried in a military commission, as the CBS News Investigative Unit reported earlier today. A source tells CBS News the commission will be held at the Guantanamo Bay prison. Today’s announcement represents a pronounced shift in the administration’s handling of terrorism cases. Trying Mohammad in a civilian court and closing the Guantanamo prison were once some of the Obama administration’s top priorities, but political realities have hamstrung both goals. Holder said today that he still believes the federal court system would have provided the best court system. The Justice Department today unsealed the indictment against the accused 9/11 plotters in December 2009, which Holder said revealed ‘we were prepared to bring a powerful case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.’ ‘I continue to think the Article 3 courts are the best place to bring’ the accused terrorists to trial, he said. However, he added, justice for the victims of 9/11 has been ‘long overdue and must not be delayed any further.’”
Michelle Malkin takes issue with Eric Holder’s lament about “political realities.” “Not just ‘political realities,’” she writes. “Homeland security realities. Public safety realities. Intelligence realities. Wartime realities. Reality realities. Reality bites. Sanity wins. For now.”
At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey concurs. “It’s the result of theoretical thinking meeting some hard realities. The court’s interference in detention of foreign fighters during Congressionally authorized military and intelligence operations is unprecedented, and it had resulted in the curious and dangerous orders for release from district courts — which would have set terrorists free inside the US. The Supreme Court has decided to keep that thinking theoretical instead of overruling the decisions of the executive branch, which isn’t a bad precedent to set. For Holder and Barack Obama, however, the decision to send KSM back to a military commission is an unmitigated political defeat. Obama stopped the commission’s trial of KSM immediately upon taking office even though KSM had indicated he’d plead guilty. Now that process has to start over, wasting more time and resources for nothing more than two years of grandstanding. In the end, Obama not only didn’t close Gitmo, he actually showed how necessary it is for dealing with terrorists captured abroad by our military and intelligence assets.”
“Once more, I root for President Obama’s success because the only way he can succeed is by being President George Walker Bush’s third term,” declares Don Surber. “KSM beheaded Daniel Pearl. The Bush administration wisely water-boarded KSM to extract as much information as possible. He blabbed like a baby because he is a coward. House Republicans forced this — another benefit of the Tea Party.”
Hey, Don, did KSM blab like a baby because he’s a coward? Or did he blab because he had just had water poured into his face for a thoroughly unpleasant amount of time? I don’t think that the ability to withstand the pain of waterboarding is really here nor there when it comes to assessing courage or cowardice; KSM’s a coward because he beheads unarmed men and orders other men to fly planes into skyscrapers.
Meanwhile, over at Contentions, Alana Goodman notices, “Over the past week, Americans have continued to lose confidence in President Obama’s national security performance. According to the latest Rasmussen poll, 40 percent of likely voters now disapprove of how the president has handled national security, while 37 percent approve. That is a significant dip from last week when 34 percent of voters disapproved, while 43 percent approved. And Obama’s address on Libya apparently didn’t help matters . . . It’s important to keep in mind that voters disapprove of the president’s performance, but not necessarily of the intervention in Libya. A plurality of Americans approve of the military action, according to a recent Gallup poll. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has been closely associated with the war in Libya, has a record-high approval rating of 66 percent.”