...or does good news flush out as many morons as bad?

Osama, we hardly knew ya.

or

There once was a fiend named Osama

Who for years had caused nothing but trauma

He eluded George Bush

In the wild Hindu Kusch

'Til encountering the Balls of Obama.


But I digress.

The new definition of a nanosecond is the time between a significant news event and the time that the hand-wringers, self-serving asshats and nullifiers attempt to spin the facts to suit their agenda. To wit: the highly trained and deeply motivated men of the Navy Seals terminated the disagreeable life of Osama "are those helicopters outside" Bin Laden last weekend. No loss there. As the facts of their mission are released, one thing appears clear. The President of The United States sent the Seals to Pakistan for one reason and it wasn't to score some good weed. The President's instructions were very clear, don't bring back any tee shirts, STD's or bearded terrorists. There isn't much sad singing over the loss a man considered the very face of evil. (That title now passes to Dick Cheney.)

However, now that the cheering has died down, America has returned to focusing on the issues of the day like: Snookie's weight loss, the Capitals folding in another Stanley Cup bid and whether Donald Trump will ever recover from the pounding he received at the White House Correspondence Dinner. (Seriously, if you haven't watched Seth Meyers and President Obama crush Trump, watch it on YouTube. It's the best!) Predictably, like stink follows a garbage truck, a stream of scolds have emerged to fill the news void and urinate on our campfire.

First out of the gate is a steaming pile of Bushies who immediately began crowing that torturing prisoners at Gitmo was the direct cause of Bin Laden's death. Really? Most notable among these failed armchair warriors was John Yoo who took to the Wall Street Journal today to pontificate about how his policies put a bullet in Bin Laden's eye. The actual quote was " Sunday's success also vindicates the Bush Administration whose intelligence architecture marked a path to Bin Laden's door." That must have been some circuitous trail considering that, in seven years, the Bush team produced squadouch. For the record: since Gitmo opened in 2001, no intelligence officer, no torturer, no administration official of any rank has ever testified that waterboarding ever produced one scrap of actionable intelligence. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded so many times he grew gills and we never got a thing. We stopped waterboarding in 2005. All enhanced interrogation techniques stopped by 2007. It has been four years since then. How much useful information could these guys have? Face it! The Bush Administration had six years to torture the bejeezes out of the prisoners at Gitmo and other rendition sites and still couldn't find their ass with both hands. By the way...the closest John Yoo ever got to a weapon was playing World of Warcraft on his x-Box.

Mr. Yoo then has the temerity to suggest that the Obama administration took the easy way out by killing Bin Laden rather than "wade through the difficult questions raised by (his) detention". He also suggests that capturing Bin Laden would have been an intelligence bonanza. I imagine that Mr. Yoo would have encouraged the President to broadcast the waterboarding of Bin Laden on C-SPAN. John Yoo is a reprehensible turd whose advice to the White House was wrong both legally and morally. The less we hear from him, the better.

But John Yoo wasn't the only precinct heard from. There are reports of "Muslim leaders and scholars" who have concerns about the handling of the body of Osama Bin Laden. These would be the same "Muslim leaders and scholars" who were silent after 9-11 and who lost their voices as Americans were burned in Mogadishu. No offense boys but TFB. I suspect that the officers aboard the aircraft carrier transporting Bin Laden to his fish food reward had their hands full ensuring that the sailors didn't piss all over the body. Let's hear the "leaders and scholars" remind their flocks that Bin Laden was a murderer and, in death, got a lot better than he deserved.

Then we have Rashard Mendenhall whose tweets on the death of Osama Bin Laden have reinforced the idea that some technology should be left in the hands of adults. Mr. Mendenhall makes his living in the intellectually stimulating world of professional football. His thoughts (we'll call them that) remind all of us that we rarely seek the wisdom of the universe in Pittsburgh's Heinz Field on Sunday afternoons in the fall. Rashard's musings on death and skyscraper demolition bespeak one too many encounters with opponents' helmets. If Barack Obama agrees not to try out for running back for the Steelers perhaps Mr. Mendenhall will agree not to make Amercian war policy.

But our final shout-out goes to The Morning Star Institute, a Native American advocacy group. Apparently the group is taking exception to the use of "Geronimo" as the code word for the successful killing of Osama Bin Laden. This sentiment was echoed by Loretta Tuell of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Loretta went so far at to opine that the use of Native American icons like Geronimo can be "devastating" to young Indians. No doubt "banzai" would have produced an equally pained reaction from the Japanese community. Political correctness has a place and no one group can decide what offends another, nevertheless, it appears unlikely that the Navy Seals who stormed the Bin Laden compound intended to equate Geronimo with Bin Laden. Considering the current colloquial nature of our language, yelling "O'Mally" or "Corleone" would not have conveyed the same message. They might have considered "dude" but again, no pazzaz.

Our apology to any and all Native Americans who might have been offended. The Pentagon has promised to be more sensitive when next we kill an interenational terrorist. Perhaps "Hitler" will work. Advanced apologies to the German American Bund.

This just in...the US will not release the photos of the perforated OBL. Hear! Hear! The American government doesn't need to be providing bulletin board material for every crazy-ass jihaddist in the world. If people want to see a bearded body shot in the eye, rent Season VI of CSI.

...or should KSM visit NYC for a well-deserved ASS-kicking?

To begin with, I refuse to refer to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as KSM. He's not JFK, LBJ or even GWB. We didn't confer "initial" status on Ted Bundy or Charlie Manson. We didn't call John Wayne Gacy "JWG". That's all Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is after all; a cold-eyed mass murderer. He's not a creepy intellectual like Hannibal Lecter. Not a brilliant psycho in the mold of Lex Luthor. He isn't even scary to look at, although that arrest photo makes you glad he's not sitting next to you on the subway. Take away the flowing robes, the Islamic rhetoric and the al Qaeda mystique and he's just another thug with a bomb.



And what do we do with murderers like Mohammed here in the good old U.S. of A.? You're damn right. We give 'em a fair trial and hang 'em. Why then are we so afraid of giving Mohammed a trial in New York? What terrible evil do we imagine he might reign down on Manhattan? Hell, he's already killed 3,000 people and destroyed several square blocks of real estate. I'm guessing he's already taken his best shot.



Nevertheless, the hand-wringing over the Justice Department's decision to try Mohammed in New York has been disturbing. Rudy Giuliani, desperate for any, and I mean any, issue that might possibly resonate with voters, any voters, has voiced his disapproval. He feels, as many do, that Mohammed is a terrorist. Terrorist is a fuzzy word meant to strike fear in the hearts of our citizens, like the bogey man. According to Republicans, a terrorist is any person unworthy of a trial or status as a prisoner of war. According to Giuliani, terrorists should be locked away forever without trial, without rights, without access to a defense. Presumably, Mr. Giuliani would accord Maj. Hasan of recent Ft. Hood fame the same status. Certainly his actions were those of a terrorist. In his slide toward obscurity and irrelevance, poor Rudy is grasping at any issue that might earn him a line or two in the press. This assertion that New York City isn't up to a trial will do nothing to improve voter turnout should he be deluded enough to run for Governor or Senator.



Michael Mukasey, the last of George Bush's Attorneys' General, feels that a trial in New York is just too hard. He thinks that the trial might make New York a target. Holy 9-11 Batman! Don't we think that horse is already out of the barn? Of course N.Y. is a target. That's why they hit us there. New York's vulnerability won't be lessened if we change the venue to Tupelo.

Mukasey also speculates that security in New York might not be up to the challenge. Honestly? New York has 36,000 police officers. They might take umbrage at the notion they can't lock down one scruffy Arab. Where does Mr. Mukasey think the trial could be held? Apalachicola? Reno? Fairbanks?



We have also heard from that noted constitutional scholar John Yoo, formerly of the Bush Dungeons and Dragons Justice Department. Mr. Yoo will be forever remembered for the memos that showed how the Founding Fathers specifically encouraged torturing people we don't like. Yoo disapproves of the New York trial of Mr. Mohammed on the grounds that testimony and cross examination will reveal details of America's intelligence apparatus.He thinks some stealthy, star-chamber prosecution is the answer. Mr. Yoo is currently lecturing at UC Berkeley using balloon folding to show how to manipulate the Constitution.



Seriously, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a murderer; nothing more. His crime might have been noteworthy, but he isn't. Every time some bed-wetting politician attempts to curry favor with conservative America by excessively demonizing him, it only enhances his status among his followers. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be tried in New York because that is where the crime was committed. He should sit in shackles in an orange jumpsuit and be tried. (Possibly not by a jury of his peers.) He should get a fair trial, be judged and, if guilty, be sentenced. This is America. We are not afraid of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He is not bigger than two hundred years of Constitutional Law. The justice that he and his followers deny to others will be the justice that does him in. We are not doing this because of who Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is. We're doing it because it's who we are.