Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

On May 13, when leading Democrats in the US Congress were attempting to force president Bush to accept time-lines for troop withdrawals in Iraq, Iranian jihadists were hauling in and arresting American citizens, apparently without permitting them the same rights under American law that U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd would have afforded to Kalid Shiek Mohammad . Kalid Shiek Mohammad, the architect of the bombing of the U.S. Cole in the Clinton administration, the organizer of 9/11 and the beheader of American journalist Daniel Pearl, among other accomplishments, was waterboarded and spent some time in the non-combatant camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an ordeal from which he emerged with all his digits and his head intact. Now running for president on the Cindy Sheehan ticket, Dodd said in a speech before Council on Foreign Relations last October that such as Kalid Shiek Mohammad should be afforded the same rights as American citizens. It was during this speech, just prior to his presidential bi...