One would have to find him first.

This ties into the GOP theme that Obama wants to go back to the "bad old days" when we prosecuted terrorists in the courts, treating terrorist acts as criminal cases, vice acts of war.

Yeh, one WOULD have to find him first. Great job the Repubs have done on that front.

And maybe Obama should expand on that view, of treating terrorists as criminals rather than warriors. I figure there are two arguments for this.  The first one is that if we capture him, try him, and put him in a small box for the rest of his life, then he won't be a martyr.  The second one is that unless we are just willing to invade countries without their permission - Pakistan - we're never really going to be able to carry this out as a war against Obama.  Treating this as a criminal investigation may be the only way to get to bin Laden.

Yep, the morons are only helping BHO spread his point.

Anonevent makes two good points.  Furthermore, treating terrorists as soldiers confers on them a political legitimacy they crave but don't deserve.  Wars are fought between states.  Terrorists are violent thugs with delusions of grandeur.  Besides, the international system has prosecuted figures with far more claim to being heads of legitimate political entities (Charles Taylor, the Balkan war criminals, etc) - so there's no reason that the court system can't be applied to bin Laden as well, if it came to that.

So far the current path to justice being pursued by Bush Inc. is neither swift or sure.  Yeah, Plan A isn't working so well nearly seven years after 911. The torture >>>---> Sekit Prizin >>>---> Gitmo and maybe (maybe not?) a trial with enough admissible evidence to get the job done has yet proved to be a success and The Dr. and OBL are still in business.

No, the hundreds of detainees aren't on a book tour but one wonders if they'd be convicted and not looking forward to more attention had the traditional rule of law been applied.  McCain and Bush don't approve of the decisions of SCOTUS but they better catch on to the trend before the highest court forces them to start over.  

Since "the GOP is in a heap o' trouble." their pathetic reliance on nonsense attacks (In June?) is one strange strategy for success. Then again, after McCain spent a few days in Florida it appeared to be followed by Barack's leap in the polls. The Republicans may wish to switch from the 'less is more' plan to 'stay home and shut up'. If I was a Republican office holder I'd not look forward to a McCain visit.  

Miceelf,

Good point.  There's not a lot of maneuvers the GOP can make without drawing attention to their recent (within 10 years) blunders.  Unless they want to swallow their pride every step of the way, they are going to have to run on some seriously marginal issues that may or may not resonate with blue collar Americans:

-- Reestablish good ties with Nordic nations in exchange for their North Sea oil and shoddy but sheik furniture outlets.

--Smoothing out the rough ends of the economy by pouring investments into products that represent individual liberty, patriotism and family values: paint supplies, Peanut Butter and Jelly-flavored candy bars, baby formula.

--Putting the USA back into our culture: fighting the scourge of rubbery, grayish franks that patrons are forces to buy for upwards of six dollars at our ballparks and bringing real beef hot dogs back to baseball; making it illegal to sell croissants or flan at such sporting events (this is a culture war, after all)

--Debt peonage in order to save your previous mortgage rates

--Ability to rate immigrants and welfare recipients online a la ratemyprofessor.com in an effort to keep those few who speak the language and appear to work hard

--Taking away wage taxes and replacing them with taxes on lattes and sushi

You ALL have missed the point of the Republican ad.  The important phrase is "the entire world", including those cheese-eating surrender monkeys in old Europe.  In this statement Obama is yet again demonstrating he is yet another Carter-like, Brzezinski-following, latte-froth internationalist who is willing to surrender the US sovereignty to imprison, torture and execute (or disappear) prisoners of war to the UN, the French, the Iranians (Iran is part of "the entire world", right?) and the Lybians.

The US does not need to show anything whatever to 'the entire world".  Everone knows that "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind" was written by a Pinko-Commie sympathiser and inserted into the Declaration of Independence by the Pink Panthers - I mean, the Black Panthers, whatever.  And by not wanting to "make a martyr" out of Osama, Obama, Osama, Obama is showcasing his liberal internationalist opposition to the death penalty, even for heinous terrorists.  Because what Obama is really saying is that we have to Mirandize Osama when we find him in Tora Bora.  Or Pakistan.  Or Saudi Arabia.  Or Panama.

If, that is, we find him.

It's a good rule of thumb for political media ops not to send out quotes that suggest an obviously damaging counter-quote.  That is, if the opposite of the statement were true (and the implication is that your guy would do the opposite), the results would be dumb.  McCain should make OSB a martyr?  Maybe someone at RNC needs to go out in the fresh air for 10 mins and then start work again.

Everyone's shooting the fish in the barrel. If you had to make an argument in favor of punishing people, possibly to death, before any reasonable due process to find out if they are even guilty in the first place, what would YOU say? I myself could not come up with anything better than the RNC here.

If put on trial, Osama bin Laden would get Lynne Stewart or some other collaborationist (there's no shortage) as a lawyer. He'd spend a few years in prison and then get an endowed chair In Noam Chomsky's department at MIT. Or he would run for mayor in Berkeley.

Given his positions on sexual orientation and the status of women, Berkeley wouldn't be a good place to start.  Somewhere in the South would be better -- he could campaign on "values."

Sleepy don't confuse Leftist academic agit-pop thought for the callousness that Osama bin Laden exhibits towards humanity. Even a Berkeley Marxist have a soft spot for puppies. Osama? He's the Devil incarnate. Osama is a special breed. Not one to rationalize with nor one that anyone could possibly defend as a person of rational thought.

It reminds me of the scene in Tombstone when Val Kilmer's Doc Holiday talks to Russell's Wyatt before his meeting with Johnny Ringo.

Wyatt: "What makes a man like Ringo, Doc?  What makes him do the things he does?

Doc: "A man like Ringo...got a great empty hole right through the middle of him. He can never kill enough or steal enough...or inflict enough pain to ever fill it."

Wyatt: "What does he need?"

Doc: "Revenge."

Wyatt: "For what?"

Doc: "Bein' born."