Underwear Bomber's Treatment a Travesty

Charles Krauthammer finds the Obama administration's handling of accused bomb plotter Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab more scandalous with every new bit of information that emerges. The Justice Department decided to read the underwear bomber his Miranda rights after just 50 minutes of questioning and they didn't consult with the heads of the Defense Department, FBI, Homeland Security, or the Director of National Intelligence, Krauthammer writes in the Washington Post.

Abdulmutallab would have been an ideal candidate for the new High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group the administration promised to create in August, but not a single HIG team is operational yet, Krauthammer writes. No way to reverse Abdulmutallab's status, he notes, but it's not to late to block Khalid Sheik Mohammed's civilian trial in New York. Congress, he argues, should cut off funding for the trial to let Obama know that "the Constitution is neither a safety net for illegal enemy combatants nor a suicide pact for us." (More Charles Krauthammer stories.)