If ever there was a state that typifies the judicial branch, it’s Missouri: the “Show Me” state. That’s what the legal system does, day in and day out. It demands that all those who have disagreements, whether small or grand, stand before the court and prove their case. Even the Government of the United States of America has to come before a judge who asks one question, over and over and over again: show me.

• Show me, as in “show me the warrant.”
• Show me, as in “show me the indictment.”
• Show me, as in “show me the evidence.”
• Show me, as in “show me the law.”
• Show me, as in “show me the verdict.”

Missourians don’t fear other points of view, as Bond seems to do. We’ll get out there and argue with each other and anyone else, sometimes vehemently, and stand up for our ways of doing things. Long before Reagan was saying “trust but verify,” Missourians like Harry Truman were well accustomed to  “Show me.”

Bond apparently has forgotten his heritage. After all his years in DC, after all his efforts to help the Bush DOJ to sweep all manner of misconduct under the rug, after all his work to stifle meaningful oversight of the intelligence community, the phrase “Show Me” seems to have been removed from Bond’s mind.

But if Bond has forgotten, the folks who moved into the DOJ in January remember how it used to be:

Before the fall of 2001, the undisputed center of gravity for federal law enforcement’s antiterrorism efforts was New York. A small cadre of federal prosecutors in Manhattan, led by then–U.S. attorney Mary Jo White, amassed a perfect record in prosecuting accused terrorists. Backed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office won convictions against more than 30 defendants in eight years, including those involved in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and the attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. In trials in 1995 and 1996, prosecutors successfully convicted Ramzi Yousef and the so-called blind sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman before they were able to carry out elaborate attacks on commercial airliners and New York landmarks.

New York gets it, even if Bond doesn’t. One big reason why NY was so good at this can be stated in two words, familiar to FDL readers: Patrick Fitzgerald.

Long before the attacks of 11 September 2001, he embarked on a global chase of al-Qaeda, bin Laden and other Islamic terrorists. The Abdel-Rahman case was the first of many, as Fitzgerald became part of a legal task force designed to combat this threat. He was certainly ahead of the curve. In 1995, six years before all the post-9/11 political speeches, here is Fitzgerald saying Abdel-Rahman had declared ‘… jihad with the sword, the cannon, the grenade and the missile … the defendants in this room conspired to steal from Americans their freedom from fear.’ The Abdel-Rahman case ended in convictions.

After that came the Ramzi Yousef plot to blow up 12 American airliners simultaneously, widely seen as al-Qaeda’s precursor to 9/11. Again, Fitzgerald won his case. By 1996 the name Osama bin Laden was increasingly crossing his radar. When the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were blown up in 1998, Fitzgerald was in East Africa within 48 hours. Soon, four men were on trial in a vastly complex case. But in his summation, Fitzgerald boiled it down to one name. ‘Someone whom you heard little about,’ he told the jury: ‘Rosaline Wanjeku Muwangi, and she’s count number 123… This trial is about her murder.’ The jury delivered four guilty verdicts. Later, as Fitzgerald walked into a room of victims and relatives, the east Africans hailed him with a tribal chant of praise.

That chant of praise is why the trial of KSM needs to be held. That’s why it needs to be held in NYC. That’s why it needs to be in a civilian court. That’s why it needs to be in as open a courtroom setting as possible. Each of the victims deserve this trial, and the world needs to see how a real system of justice works.

For too long, we have cowered in fear. Under the Bush administration, we’ve traded “show me” for indefinite detentions, for legal procedures whipped up on the spur of the moment, and for purported “separate but equal” systems of justice. Bond may fear KSM getting a platform, but turning him into a martyr silenced by a perversion of justice will give his followers even more recruiting power.

Senator Bond, what’s the deal? You’re a lawyer, a former Missouri Assistant Attorney General, the former governor of Missouri, and now the senior senator of Missouri. With all that in your background, why don’t you trust our system of government?

It’s time to stand up and show the world how a real system of justice works.

It’s time to answer the judge’s question: “Show me.”