Congressman Jim Moran: Mr. Responsibility

In the event that terrorists housed at Guantanamo Bay are transferred to the United States for trial, the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia – the location of Zacarias Moussaoui’s trial and John Walker Lindh’s plea – could well be their destination.

Congressman Jim Moran explained in an interview last week that should this come to pass it was the “responsibility” of his constituents in Northern Virginia to accept these Gitmo detainees.

The Alexandria Times has reported on Moran’s determination to support the President on the issue of terrorist trials in American cities.

Moran was not always so open to this prospect. In 2002, he wrote Attorney General John Ashcroft on behalf of his constituents.

… It is clear that in the climate that exists in our world today, it will be impossible to guarantee that terrorists will not try to disrupt the trials or harm civilians who live next door.

Yet today, many more people live next door, with 10,000 residents and workers in the area around Alexandria’s federal courthouse during business hours.

This would seem to make Alexandria even less fit for terrorist trials than it was in 2002, when Moran cautioned against bringing terrorists there. But according to Moran, closing Gitmo has become such a moral imperative that Alexandrians must “stand strong” and assume their citizenly “responsibility” of hosting terrorist trials in a densely populated community.

You have to hand it to Moran. As an elected official from Virginia, he is increasingly isolated in defending the ramifications of the President’s hasty decision to close Gitmo. The Democratic mayor of Alexandria opposes detainee trials in his city. And last weekend, Democratic Senator Jim Webb rejected “artificial timelines” for closing Gitmo, acknowledging that the President’s promise to close the facility within a year of taking office was unreasonable.

Moran told the Times that he has been hearing “mostly negative” things about the possibility of terrorist trials from his constituents.

You don’t say.

A few weeks ago, Republicans in Alexandria tapped into voter weariness with the Democrats to win 2 seats on the City Council.

Next up… Jim Moran.