"We do believe that what are called Article Three trials, in other words in our civilian courts, are appropriate for the vast majority of detainees," Clinton told Fox News' Chris Wallace...
"The question is do you have any choice now except to hold all of the terror detainees at Gitmo or either give them military trials or hold them indefinitely?" Wallace asked Clinton.
"The sentence for what he was convicted of is 20 years to life," Clinton replied. "That is a significant sentence. Secondly, some of the challenges in the courtroom would be the very same challenges before a military commission about whether or not certain evidence could be used."
"If you look at the comparison between terrorists who are now serving time in our maximum security prisons compared to what military commissions have been able to do, there's no comparison," Clinton later said on NBC.
"We get convictions, we send people away in our civilian courts at a much more regularized-- and-- and predictable way than yet we've been able to figure out how in the military commission."
"It is good enough and strong enough to either convict and sentence the guilty, or even execute where appropriate, and where you can't convince an American jury, which is certainly obsessed with terrorism, maybe there's a question about the strength of the case," she said.
Whoa. I didn't think you were allowed to suggest even in the most abstract way that the "terrorists" might not be guilty or that the authorities might have erred in their capture or incarceration.
What she says, of course, is common sense and shouldn't even be controversial. And maybe it's some sort of State Department diplomacy. But I'm so inured to bipartisan governmental double speak on this that I confess I was shocked to hear it coming from such a high official in the administration.