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Former Gov. George Pataki apparently thinks that if you repeat yourself enough times and keep regurgitating the same lies over and over again, eventually that makes you right. Pataki along with a lot of others on the right apparently aren't too happy about the outcome of the trial of now convicted terrorist Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani.

Palin Adviser Wanted Execution Without Trial For Convicted Terrorist Ahmed Ghailani :

A Federal District Court in Manhattan convicted Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani yesterday on one count of of conspiracy for the 1998 terror bombings of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. While Ghailani — the first former Guantanamo detainee to be tried in civilian court — was acquitted of more than 280 other charges, he faces 20 years to life in prison.

On cue, conservatives are outraged at the result of the trial (even though he’ll spend time in a maximum security prison for least 20 years), claiming he should have been tried in a military tribunal. Liz Cheney’s group Keep America Safe claimed that “bad ideas have dangerous consequences. … We urge the president: End this reckless experiment. Reverse course. Use the military commissions at Guantanamo that Congress has authorized.” (The Center for American Progress’ Ken Gude notes on the Wonk Room that military commissions “deliver shorter sentences than civilian courts” and “the minimum sentence that Ghailani can receive is longer than the combined sentences” of three of the four detainees who have been convicted in military commissions.)

The extremely patient Jonathan Turley wrote about the case at his blog as well and Rep. Peter King's similar reaction to Pataki's here to the verdict.

Ghailani Acquitted On Major Terrorism Charges — Rep. King Responds With Call To Change Legal System:

In a truly disturbing response to the verdict, Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) denounced the jury verdict as “a total miscarriage of justice” and insisted “this tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration’s decision to try Al Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts.” Of course, no one would accuse New Yorkers as being ambivalent on terrorism.

Nevertheless, Rep. King’s solution to a jury of citizens acquitting an accused person is to rig the system to avoid such juries in the future. It is the most raw demonstration that the interest in the tribunal system is the view that it is outcome determinative and pre-set for convictions. Rep. King appears to be joining the Queen of Hearts that we must have a system that guarantees “sentence first, verdict afterwards.”

Matthews sub Michael Smerconish completely lost control of this interview and allowed George Pataki to control it and talk over everyone. I think Pataki's been going to the same media training school as Ron Christie where they teach you to talk over everyone else, never come up for air, filibuster, feign outrage and hope you run the clock out so the other guests never get a chance to get a word in. This was just a shameless display by Pataki defending torture.

UPDATE: Transcript via Lexis Nexis below the fold.

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Politicians on both sides of the aisle have questioned an Obama administration plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in civilian courts. But the alternative -- military tribunals -- may prevent suspects from being sentenced to the harshest of penalties.

Attorney General Eric Holder told CBS News Sunday that it may not be possible to sentence detainees to death if they plead guilty in a military tribunal.

"Can you, in fact, seek the death penalty when you take someone before a military tribunal?" asked CBS' Bob Schieffer. "I know you can in a civilian court because I've had some lawyers tell me that that might not be possible [in a military tribunal]."

"You can seek the death penalty," explained Holder. "There's a real question as to whether someone can plead guilty and get the death penalty on the military side. You can certainly do that in a civilian setting."

"It's interesting nobody has made much of that. That this is so controversial. I'm surprised that those of you that favor the civilian trial haven't said to some who want to put these people before a military tribunal, 'look, we might not get the death penalty,'" noted Schieffer.

But Holder resisted using the death penalty as an argument for civilian trials.

"One of the thing that is particularly bothersome to me, this is something that has become political. The politicization of this issue when we're dealing with ultimate national security issues is something that disturbs me a great deal," said Holder.

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From CNN's State of the Union, John Boehner with his daily dose of fear mongering on closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Heaven forbid we can't try them here because their friends might come and get us.

CROWLEY: One last question, and this is on terrorism. And Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and civilian trials versus military tribunals. It appears that there may be a deal in the works which the president would reverse the Holder decision -- Attorney General Holder's decision to try these 9-11 suspects in a civilian court to perhaps a military tribunal in exchange for money to bring some of these prisoners they can't try and put them in a super-max wherever they decide. Is that acceptable to you?

BOEHNER: We'll have to see what the final pieces of this look like. But we have -- we have a world class facility at Guantanamo. And -- and--

(CROSSTALK)

CROWLEY: But they're going to close that. You know that? I mean--

BOEHNER: Well, no they're not. They -- they keep saying they are. But they want $500 million from this Congress to rehabilitate this prison in northwest Illinois. I want to see who the members are who are going to vote for this. I wouldn't vote for this if you put a gun to my head.

CROWLEY: But it's such a -- Guantanamo Bay has such a bad feel to it across the world. And that's one of the reasons given for -- fine -- it's a great facility. But it's one of the reasons that people in the world looked at America and thought they have really strayed from their value system.

So if you were to move -- which has been a very important Republican point on foreign policy. If you were to move these trials into a military tribunal, why not say, "Fine, bring them? Guantanamo Bay has a bad feel to it. Let's put them in a super max and be done with it."

BOEHNER: Well, I think we have a world class facility at Guantanamo. I think it's the appropriate -- appropriate place to hold these prisoners. And they can do the -- the tribunals right there at Guantanamo. There is no reason to bring these terrorists into the United States. No reason to increase the threat level here, because they're here. Their friends may want to come. It makes no sense to me. And I don't think the Congress will appropriate one dime to move those prisoners from Guantanamo to the United States.

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Liz Cheney seems to have forgotten about a presidential daily briefing that said Osama bin Laden was determined to strike within the U.S. The daughter of the former vice president believes that military tribunals for terrorists following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing would have resulted in important intelligence that could have prevented 9/11.

"What you have is a situation, unquestionably we went through a period in the nation's history we dealt with terrorism as law enforcement matter," Cheney explained to Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday.

"As Attorney General Mukasey pointed out when we prosecuted and convicted people after the '93 World Trade Center bombing and East Africa bombing, what it got us was 9/11 and 3,000 dead Americans."

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From The Situation Room, Jonathan Turley calls out Tom Ridge's hackery from his appearance on Larry King. It was nice to see Turley point out that the term Malveaux used, enhanced interrogations -- that she tossed out there so lightly, is torture. Unfortunately we don't have enough like Turley to counter all the talking head torture-lovers like Ridge, King, Hoekstra and Cheney.

MALVEAUX: I want to go to you, to Jonathan.

Clearly, there are some prominent Republicans who are looking at the situation about Mutallab being tried in a military tribunal situation, as opposed to the federal court system. And they want a military tribunal. They want to be able to question him, perhaps enhanced interrogations.

We heard this from the former Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge on "LARRY KING." I want you to take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LARRY KING LIVE")

TOM RIDGE: I take a look at this individual who has been charged criminally, does that mean he's going to get his Miranda warnings?

Does that mean the only kind of information we want to get from him is if he volunteers it. He's not a citizen of this country. He's a terrorist, and I don't think he deserves the full range of protections of our criminal justice system embodied in the Constitution of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: What do you think about his point that he's making? Are we missing vital -- perhaps vital intelligence from Abdulmutallab on whether or not there are additional attackers who are out there?

JONATHAN TURLEY: I think that's very unlikely.

First of all, supposedly, he was speaking very freely for some time after his arrest. But what we know from the past, from the Bush torture program, is that it yielded very little information. Information it did yield was known to be highly suspect.

But it's not really about the information that you get from special interrogations, which is a nice way of saying torture. It is also not about what rights he deserves. What is really the question is what rights we have to give people to maintain our credibility around the world.

That is, the way the world viewed the Bush administration was that, well, George Bush often looked almost Caesar-like, sending some people to federal courts, some people to military tribunal. Some people got no trial at all.

In this case, we had Richard Reid, who was virtually identical in his act. He went to federal court. Zacarias Moussaoui went to federal court. And I think that it's a problem if we treat a legal system as sort of improvisational, that we simply go by case by case of what we feel someone should have in terms of rights.

The credibility of a legal system is its consistency. Without consistency, it lacks coherence. And I think what Mr. Ridge is saying that, when we really don't like you or we think that we might get some information out of you, then we won't give you the rights under our system.

And that creates the type of anger and, frankly, the view of hypocrisy that the United States has faced. But I think it's very unlikely. A military tribunal doesn't -- doesn't generate intelligence. It's not a way to generate any more intelligence than a federal trial is.

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Peter King is back at it again trashing the ACLU. This time he blames the ACLU for the delay in the release of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. If that nasty ACLU had not brought all those lawsuits forward we'd have already wrapped up those kangaroo court military tribunals.