You Can't Get Everything You Want

You cannot make everyone happy.  The decision to try those behind 9/11 has provoked the usual controversy with the NYT focused on how the families of the victims feel.  Some families are pleased and some are upset.  Of course, when making decisions about who to try and how, prosecutors should not care that much about the opinions of the families of the victims if one has a Justice system in place.  What is justice?  This is a difficult question that political theorists ponder all the time in their best efforts to confuse everyone else.  I am pretty sure that revenge is not the defining component, so the families' feelings are not so integral to the process.


While this is a predictable angle the NYT can choose to take, it really does not illuminate much at all.  The other articles about this decision are better at revealing the legal complexities and political tradeoffs.  Once again, thanks to the issues in play and the decisions made by his predecessor, Obama faces few good alternatives and mostly picking the best of a bad set of alternatives.