Is This Better Late Than Never?

The New York Times reported on Sunday:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Sunday it would seek a law allowing investigators to interrogate terrorism suspects without informing them of their rights, as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. flatly asserted that the defendant in the Times Square bombing attempt was trained by the Taliban in Pakistan. (“Holder Backs a Miranda Limit for Terror Suspects”).

I guess history really did begin with Barack Obama’s election.

Otherwise why would Attorney General Eric Holder suddenly be talking about the Islamic terrorism that’s been shadowing all of us since September 11, 2001 as a “new threat”?

Sunday on Meet the Press, AG Holder had a brand-new approach to the issue. “We’re now dealing with international terrorists,” he said, “and I think that we have to think about perhaps modifying the rules that interrogators have and somehow coming up with something that is flexible and is more consistent with the threat that we now face.”

NOW dealing with international terrorists? The threat that we NOW face?

AG Holder was recently championing the 50-minute questioning of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and now last week was asking Congress for legislation allowing lengthier interrogations.

“If we are going to have a system that is capable of dealing in a public safety context with this new threat, I think we have to give serious consideration to at least modifying that public safety exception,” Mr. Holder said. “And that’s one of the things that I think we’re going to be reaching out to Congress to do: to come up with a proposal that is both constitutional but that is also relevant to our time and the threat that we now face.”

NOW face? What have the rest of us been doing the last 8 ½ years?

I suppose we should count our blessings. Things on the terror front haven’t been going so well under a president who believes his ascension to office marks Year Zero of humanity’s bright new history.

But if now he realizes, even if it’s for reasons of political survival alone, that we have to actually fight back against these people, then that’s something, after all.