Wow, why wasn't this on the news?

[Yonivore]

Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe
and tried to light it?

Did you know his trial is over?

Did you know he was sentenced?

Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV/Radio?

Didn't think so.

Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything
to say.

After admitting his guilt to the court for the record,
Reid also admitted his "allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and
to the religion of Allah," defiantly stated "I think I ought not
apologize for my actions," and told the court "I am at war with your country."

Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below, a stinging
condemnation of Reid in particular and terrorists in general. January 30, 2003, United States vs. Reid. Judge Young:

Mr. Richard C.
Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you. On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody ofthe United States Attorney General.

On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutive with the other. That's 80 years.

On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years consecutive to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 for the aggregate fine of $2 million.

The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to res ution and orders res ution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines. The Court imposes upon you the $800 special assessment.

The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further. This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence.

Let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist coconspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court, where we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals As human beings, we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist...And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with terrorists. We do not sign do ents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were and he said you're no big deal. You're no big deal.

What your counsel, what your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today?

I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing. And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.

It seems to me you hate the one thing that is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely. It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before
other judges.

We are about it. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bare any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure. Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to
mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.

See that flag, Mr Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. You know it always will.

Mr. Custody Officer. Stand him down.

Of course, it appears the Senior Senator from Massachussets disagrees with the judge, at least according to some news outlets...

Ted "Splash" Kennedy's latest rant got me to thinking about the contrast between the two greatest American political dynasties of the past half century, the Bushes and the Kennedys. Look at the two most prominent members of each dynasty, and in both cases you will see a study in contrasts.

The first President Bush was a decent man but decidedly not a visionary. His most famous rhetorical moments are anodyne tributes to American goodness ("a kinder, gentler nation," "a thousand points of light"), a blustery promise (but, when put in context, not a promise at all) destined to be broken ("Read my lips"), and a promise that was kept, but only just ("This will not stand," referring to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Indeed it didn't, but Saddam kept standing for more than a decade).

George W. Bush, on the other hand, was called by history to do bold things, and answered with possibly more boldness than history had expected--more, certainly, than some of his supporters are comfortable with.

Now look at the Kennedys. John F. Kennedy's presidency is hard to evaluate because it was so brief, but he is best known for the soaring rhetoric of his 1961 Inaugural Address:

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge--and more.

Kennedy's brother Ted, whose 15,423 days of service make him the second most senior U.S. senator, is best known for driving off a bridge and leaving a young woman to drown. His at ude toward America's role in the world is the opposite of his brother's; it's best summed up as an inversion of FDR: We have nothing to offer but fear itself.

Here he is yesterday at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies:

The war in Iraq has become a war against the American occupation. . . . The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution. . . . The first step is to confront our own mistakes. . . . No matter how many times the Administration denies it, there is no question they misled the nation and led us into a quagmire in Iraq. . . . As in Vietnam, truth was the first casualty of this war. . . . As a result of our actions in Iraq, our respect and credibility around the world have reached all-time lows. . . . Never in our history has there been a more powerful, more painful example of the saying that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. . . . The nations in the Middle East are independent, except for Iraq, which began the 20th century under Ottoman occupation and is now beginning the 21st century under American occupation.

And on and on and on. That last sentence we quoted is really something when you realize that the 21st century began more than four years ago, when Iraq was under Baathist occupation.

And the idea that "the nations in the Middle East are independent" really sums up Mr. Chappaquid 's worldview. Terror-sponsoring tyrannies are just peachy, suggests brother Ted, so long as America does not have to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend or oppose any foe.

Such harangues are to be expected from the malignantly magniloquent Massachusettsan, but why now? "It's remarkable that Sen. Kennedy would deliver such an overtly pessimistic message only days before the Iraqi election," said Republican spokesman Brian Jones in a statement. "Kennedy's partisan political attack stands in stark contrast to President Bush's vision of spreading freedom around the world."

But that's exactly the point. A successful election in Iraq will be a triumph for the Bush doctrine and the strongest rebuke yet to those Democrats who learned from Vietnam that America is a force for ill in the world. Ted Kennedy is, as The Wall Street Journal puts it today, "cheerleading for America to fail" because his ideology leaves him unfit to cope with American success. If he has his way, democracy in Iraq will suffer the same fate as Mary Jo Kopechne.

What do Iraqis think of his speech? Iraqi-American Haider Ajina fills the void:

I have read a number of articles in Iraqi newspapers reporting on senator Kennedy’s speech at Johns Hopkins University. (They call him a senior senator)

They are quoting him using words like “war of liberations, armed resistance, war of independence” to describe the terrorist acts in Iraq. Also asking for our complete withdrawal from Iraq by 2006 and describing what we did in Iraq as a calamity.

I think that AlZarqawy could not have rallied his troops with a better speech. What is he doing giving speeches like this so close to the elections in Iraq? Iraqis will brave threats to their lives to vote in hope that we will stay with them till they are ready. Now a U.S. senator tells them we must pull out quickly and leave the Iraqis with no help. When we fought for our independence during the revolutionary war we needed help from other nations and they did not cut and run after we declared our independence and our democratic republic. Does Kennedy not look at our past history? Will he stop at nothing for his own agenda and political gain? What shame what a defile to this great nation of ours. Then this is democracy and we must fight for his freedoms and rights like we do for ours. I wonder if he would do the same for us.

Actually, no, I don't think Kennedy would fight for our freedom. I'm not even sure he would try to save us if we were drowning. (Mary Jo Kopeckne was unavailable for comment) But there is no possible excuse for Kennedy's behavior. He is a disgrace to the office he holds.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

When you post chain mails you're as bad as Dan.

[Yonivore]

When you post chain mails you're as bad as Dan.

It's been snopesed and it's interesting so, kiss my ass.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

It's not interesting.

Look, I get tired of the same old from both sides of the aisle. Ted Kennedy is about as relevant as my grandma in the grand scheme of things (and she's buried six feet under). He's always a favorite target of conservatives because he's been around so long on the other side, and he's done some seriously dubious stuff in the past (like driving cars into rivers and walking away).

I try to live life by a relevance scale and this isn't relevant. I think just about everyone knows Ted Kennedy is a POS. So why rehash the same tired ? It's the same thing Dan does with 99.9% of all his posts.

I could GAF if it's been snoped, I've been getting the email with all that in it for the better of a year now, and it's right up there with the Cialis and Nigerian ers as far as the list of things I least enjoy seeing in my inbox.

So I guess what I'm getting at, stop with the radical right wing democrats are bad chain mail BS.

I'm all for intelligent politically related discussion on this board, but what you've posted doesn't really qualify in my eyes.

We all know Ted's a sack of , we don't need a constantly recycled chain mail to tell us again.

[Yonivore]

It's not interesting.

Look, I get tired of the same old from both sides of the aisle. Ted Kennedy is about as relevant as my grandma in the grand scheme of things (and she's buried six feet under). He's always a favorite target of conservatives because he's been around so long on the other side, and he's done some seriously dubious stuff in the past (like driving cars into rivers and walking away).

I try to live life by a relevance scale and this isn't relevant. I think just about everyone knows Ted Kennedy is a POS. So why rehash the same tired ? It's the same thing Dan does with 99.9% of all his posts.

I could GAF if it's been snoped, I've been getting the email with all that in it for the better of a year now, and it's right up there with the Cialis and Nigerian ers as far as the list of things I least enjoy seeing in my inbox.

So I guess what I'm getting at, stop with the radical right wing democrats are bad chain mail BS.

I'm all for intelligent politically related discussion on this board, but what you've posted doesn't really qualify in my eyes.

We all know Ted's a sack of , we don't need a constantly recycled chain mail to tell us again.

Well, at least we know where you stand. Thanks! That was interesting...

And I think the correct terminology is "snopesed" since the site is www.snopes.com; now, if it were www.snope.com, "snoped" would be correct but, since it's not, I don't think you've correctly referenced the website.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

I know what snopes is. Snopesed sounds dumb, snoped sounds better, so I used it. Sue me.

[Yonivore]

Sue me.

Alright...what's your name and address?

[FromWayDowntown]

Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe
and tried to light it?

Did you know his trial is over?

Did you know he was sentenced?

Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV/Radio?

Didn't think so.

Funny, I recall all of this encounter -- when it actually took place a couple of years ago, in January 2003. And it was reported all over the mainstream media. Without belaboring the point (and without trying to ac ulate an inclusive list), Judge Young's comments were reported on: CNN, Fox News, CBS, the BBC, in USA Today, and by the Associated Press.

Since I'm sure the intent in suggesting that there had been no reporting of this was purely a comment upon technology and nothing else, it's worth noting that all of these reports were filed on the day Judge Young made his comments -- pretty amazing stuff, given the antiquated technology of January 30, 2003!

Editorially, I think Young's was a pretty accurate expression of a sentiment shared by many in the time after 9/11/01 and before the invasion of Iraq, which occurred in earnest on March 20, 2003. It was a statement made at a time when most believed that we had undertaken proper measures to combat terrorism.

It's too bad that a well-thought, heartfelt statement has been reduced to nothing other than fodder for suggesting further political polarity.

[ididnotnothat]

Well, so much for his shoe deal with Nike.