Tried! Mind you, I don’t object to trying him, if it’s got to be done to give satisfaction; and I’ll be there, and chip in and help, too; but put it off till afternoon—put it off till afternoon, for I’ll have my hands middling full till after the burying—”

“Why, what do you mean? Are you going to hang him any how—and try him afterward?”

“Didn’t I say I was going to hang him? I never saw such people as you. What’s the difference? You ask a favor, and then you ain’t satisfied when you get it. Before or after’s all one—you know how the trial will go.

—Mark Twain, Roughing It

But of course you can never depend on a jury to deliver that guilty verdict. A real jury in a real court in New York (not the kangaroo job that is a Military Commission in Gitmo) found Ahmed Ghailani guilty of one count of terrorist activity—and innocent of 284 others.

Republican House Leader Mitch McConnell is outraged:

Yesterday’s acquittal in a federal court … is all the proof we need that the administration’s approach to prosecuting terrorists has been deeply misguided and indeed potentially harmful as a matter of national security.

And here’s another Republican a little unclear on the concept of justice—or perhaps very clear indeed:

“This is a tragic wake-up call to the Obama Administration to immediately abandon its ill-advised plan to try Guantanamo terrorists” in federal civilian courts, said Representative Peter King, Republican of New York. “We must treat them as wartime enemies and try them in military commissions at Guantanamo.”

Because, as we know, there’s never any doubt about those verdicts.