Moussaoui in the Dock

Take a deep breath, America.

The sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so called 20th 9/11 hijacker, is finally getting underway. Take a deep breath because your expectations are likely to be dashed, according to Andrew D. Cohen in the Washington Post.

Money quote:

Don't expect the looming trial of confessed Al Qaeda trainee Zacarias Moussaoui to answer your remaining questions about the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Do not expect it to satisfy your desire for revenge, or justice, or whatever people mean when they use the word "closure." He's the wrong guy, and this is the wrong case, to accomplish those meaningful things despite the collective cathartic exercise we all are about to endure.

Moussaoui's federal sentencing proceeding is really just a hollow shell -- he's a prop and little more -- and when it is over the government, win or lose, will have paid a terribly high price to dispatch a dyspeptic loser who has proven to be as undisciplined a criminal defendant as he was a low-level terror operative. What was supposed to be the world-wide show trial to demonstrate that America could offer fair justice even to its most vicious enemies instead has devolved into a soggy legal mess. Ever since the government picked this guy as the fall guy for the mass crime that took place on 9/11, the case has been a public-relations disaster -- and the trial is only going to make it all worse.