Speaking with reporters after a Pentagon briefing on plans to call up reserve troops, Bush offered some of his most blunt language to date when he was asked if he wanted bin Laden dead.
"I want justice," Bush said. "And there's an old poster out West… I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'"
Remember how he was later derided for saying that? Quite liteally a cowboy moment, right? Sure you remember.
In our new nuanced age, we can just skip the "alive" part:
Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress on Tuesday that Osama bin Laden will never face trial in the United States because he will not be captured alive.
In testy exchanges with House Republicans, the attorney general compared terrorists to mass murderer Charles Manson and predicted that events would ensure "we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden" not to the al-Qaida leader as a captive.
Whoa there, cow poke! The corpse of bin Laden?
Still, you have to appreciate the nuanced thinking of ruling out torturing bin Laden for information by using the killing option.
Not that I disagree with what Holder is saying. I'm fine with atomizing Osama bin Laden and relying on DNA testing of the bits to make a positive ID. But I'm just a knuckle-dragger who believes we're at war.
