What gives with these critics?

Some lawmakers, chiefly Republicans, have raised objections to the Justice Department’s decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Muhammad to New York to stand trial for plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Why?

Well, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., calls it an “insult” to the families of the victims that Muhammad and other defendants would stand trial in an American courtroom, given the rights that all criminal defendants get under the Constitution.

Attorney General Eric Holder said he is seeking the death penalty. Hmm. Do you think he’ll seat a jury that will sentence Muhammad to death if he is convicted of his crimes? The jurors will come from New York City, the site of the Twin Towers’ collapse, which killed nearly 3,000 people. Yeah, I think they’ll send this guy to his death, just like another federal jury did to another criminal defendant. Surely, you’ll recall Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber who was executed six years after blowing up the Murrah Federal Building in April 1995.

The Muhammad trial will occur just blocks from the Twin Towers site. The decision to try him in the city where most of the victims died in the 9/11 attacks is the right one.