More fear mongering from Bill-O and KKKarl on the "show trial" of Khalid Sheikh Muhammed. I want to know why Karl hasn't had his "show trial" yet. Apparently Rove thinks that judges in this country have absolutely no control over what happens during their court proceedings or he would not be making these ridiculous claims. The only thing Rove and his ilk are actually worried about is outrage over what the Bush administration did in our name if the general public hears too much about it.
Transcript via Nexis Lexis.
O'REILLY: And joining us now from Washington, FOX News analyst Karl Rove.
Now, look, as I said, I appreciated the counselor coming in here because he knew he was going to get, you know, a tough interview. But the bigger picture is he had absolutely no, no salient points to justify this show trial in New York City. And I'm saying to myself, I think this is going to damage the Obama administration and the entire country in front of the world in ways that are just going to be unbelievable. Am I wrong?
ROVE: Oh, no, you're absolutely right. This is an utter, complete disaster. It will hurt America's security and America's interests all around the world. And I understand that lawyers have an obligation to mount the most powerful defense they can mount to make every argument they can make to provide their clients every opportunity to be heard in the court of law. And that is exactly - they're going to undermine the methods that we use to capture these people in war by saying well, you wouldn't do that to an ordinary criminal who knocked over the 7/11. They're going to say the chain of evidence, the treatment of these people, you didn't mirandize them. They're going to make a mockery, a mockery of our Constitution by trying to apply it to people who are not mere criminals but are, you know, enemy combatants.
And it is going to damage our country all around the world by providing a stage, you know, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed since his capture in Pakistan has wanted nothing more than to have the opportunity to spew his hatred all clear around the world and hurt America. And we're going to give it to him.
O'REILLY: Okay.
ROVE: Well, actually the Obama administration is going to give it to him.
O'REILLY: Now, I said this from the jump, and it's never been more clear based upon my interview with the counselor last night, that Americans are going to be angry. They're going to be angry about this.
ROVE: Sure.
O'REILLY: And I don't understand why President Obama doesn't see that the anger is going to turn on him because he's the one that signed off on it. I don't get why the president doesn't see how this is going to come back to haunt him.
ROVE: Because he has ideological blinders. Remember, he has attorney general whose firm, Covington and Burling, provided assistance to 18 of these Gitmo enemy combatants. In 2007, Covington and Burling alone gave 3,000 hours of their best lawyers' best time to the defense of these enemy combatants.
So, you know, this is a sort of -- you know, look, Washington is a big cosmopolitan town, but sometimes that Oval Office can be extremely constraining. What has happened is two people with ideological blinders, Holder and Obama, have gotten together and said oh, wouldn't this be great? America will look good. We're going to show fidelity to our values. And we're going to do it by giving these people every protection of law, even though we've never extended those protections of American law to non- American citizens, who are enemy combatants attacking our country in a time of war. We've never done that before, but we'll do it now. And we'll be so much better for it. And they never, because of those ideological blinders thought this thing through.
O'REILLY: All right.
ROVE: These people are - you know, Holder is a left winger. His firm is dominated by very smart left wing lawyers.
O'REILLY: There's no doubt about that.
ROVE: .who have been hand in glove working with these enemy combatants, these enemies of America to undermine our system of justice that was aimed at giving them justice but in a military tribunal without the gigantic circus show that we're going to have in New York City for years and years and years.
O'REILLY: Were you surprise at that lawyer's answers last night when he wouldn't even admit that the 9/11 attack was murder, and he basically said we're going to put the United States on trial.
ROVE: Sure.
O'REILLY: Were you surprised by his answers? He was honest.
ROVE: Well, you know, I was surprised that he was so inept in his answers, but I'm not surprised by the fact -- look, anybody who takes up these defendants has got to be one of two people. Either somebody who believes that everybody is entitled, if you're going to be in court that you're entitled to the best defense possible, or more likely that these are left wingers, who find it attractive. It is good to put America on trial.
O'REILLY: Yeah.
ROVE: It is going to put the Bush administration on trial. It is going to be good (INAUDIBLE) on trial.
O'REILLY: Yeah. Do you think this is a tipping point for Obama, this decision?
ROVE: I -- you know, I think it's going to cement the view that is he fundamentally way out on the left wing of American politics. If -- you know, there's a recent Gallup poll that said 54 percent of the American people felt that Barack Obama was governing as a liberal. Remember, only 22 percent of Americans think of themselves as liberal. So you have 32 percent of the American people, a third of the American people who are not liberal view this guy as being a liberal. And only about a third of the people thought he was governing as a moderate. And only a very small number as conservatives. I would suspect that most of those 54 percent are really people who think that he is a, you know, that he is a liberal and are not liberals themselves. And this is simply going to cement that and make it worse.
