Politics is a game of addition – successful politics anyway.  Great leaders, when faced with a divided electorate, not to mention difficult economic times, use a limited agenda to forge consensus out of broken paradigms.  Once they achieve an initial success, they seek a broader consensus.  In the 1980’s Reagan faced a divided Republican Party and a fractured and dispirited nation.  Concentrating on the prosperity issue and our national prestige, Reagan first brought Republicans together and then independents and even many Democrats.  Indeed, so successful was Reagan at bringing people together, that in time he could rely on a group of Reagan Democrats.  Few other Presidents have had such success at building consensus let alone are able to claim a voting block from the other party in their name.

There is little doubt that Obama faced a divided electorate when he first took office and a difficult economic climate.  Rather than start with a limited agenda designed to build consensus, Obama did the opposite.  Obama chased too many rabbits at once and preferred ideological fights over practical solutions.  As a result, the Country is more divided than ever – not less.

The most recent manifestation of that divisive M.O. is the White House’s amazing decision to insist on a terror trial in New York.   Of course, it remains a jarring ideological decision to treat KSM as a “criminal” versus the warring “terrorist” that he is.  As I wrote, in my article Internment, CSI and Eric Holder’s Disarming of America, that decision will have profound negative consequences for decades to come.  To the point of this article, Obama is compounding his initial divisive decision (treating him as a criminal) by fighting with New York over the place of the trial.  It is a political fight which he cannot win regardless of the outcome of the trial.

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If you needed another reason to be against trying KSM and his band of merry maniacal Islamists in NYC, here it is.

New York City projects it will cost more than $400 million to provide security if the pre-trial preparation and trial of the suspects in the Sept. 11 terror attackstakes two years, which insiders say is virtually certain, according to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

It will cost another $206 million annually if the trial runs beyond two years, which some fear is possible, the mayor’s office estimates.

There may be some who think this is a great way to make the liberal elites on the upper west side put their money where their mouth is when it comes to giving terrorists the same rights guaranteed to American citizens under the U.S. constitution, but, of course, we will ALL have to pay for this.

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