Terms can only really, IMHO, been offensive if meant that way. Since words, regardless of their original meaning, realistically have to be treated as valid when used by the meaning they have in the time and place they are used in, I thing dumb for stupid is perfectly legitimate. Considering we're essentially talking about him being silent when asked a question, 'dumb' might not be a bad choice of words, but of course I meant that if he held the view that there was no possibility of taking bin Laden alive than his knowledge of such things is very limited or his power of reasoning is flawed, insofar as obviously, no matter how you cut it the man is a lawyer and therefore not likely to be of even average intelligence, let alone below average. I fell obliged to point out that the words stupid and dumb get tossed around this site constantly and I've never seen you post about your objections before, of course I may have missed it.




Why not? I'm certainly not aware of anyone making a decision on it either, technically only those who encounter him have any say so on the matter, you can't order people not to take prisoners and I don't believe either Bush or Obama have actually ordered his death. Regardless, the Attorney General certainly has no business speculating on whether or not bin Laden should or shouldn't be brought in alive, and is obviously under-qualified to discuss the possibility in his professional capacity, nor is it his business to tell congress that he thinks bin Laden should be killed in preference to captured in his official capacity. They asked him a question that is, if you didn't know this, is actually the sort of question his job exists to answer, and he ducked it, nobody asked him 'do you think it likely', they asked him 'if this happened'. If they, the congress, want to know how likely it is, they'd ask someone from the department of defense, not the department of justice, and it's not his business to tell members of congress what is or isn't likely to happen.



This is your raw opinion, nor are you actually explaining why it is best to kill him or what could 'get screwed'. Regardless, nobody asked the AG for an opinion of that variety. Your logic on this seems rather curious too, if I ask the AG 'How should we treat child molesters who have diplomatic immunity?' I expect some answer other than 'well, hopefully it won't come up, such being the case there's no reason to discuss it.'




That's absurd, we catch terrorists all the time, we caught Hussein, we've caught many of bin Laden's henchmen, other governments catch terrorists, even the leader of the groups. I've no idea how with a straight face you could treat the possible capture of wanted man as such a bizarre case. Nor how you could pretend that the AG shouldn't be expected to have an answer to how we would try him.



If you think that the AG of the US is playing politics by answering a hypothetical legal question that is hardly anything approaching an impossibility is 'playing politics' then I have to honestly say that I find that view on par with Flat Earth. It is simply too absurd for me to even know how to address. The very concept of an Attorney General revolves around a combination of legal knowledge, political competence, and an ability to deal with exceptional cases, the AG isn't there to deal with parking tickets. His whole original purpose was to be the governments advocate before the supreme court, which rarely deals with open and shut or politically uncharged things, this is the very person whose job it is to answer such questions, how, seriously, how can this man not be expected to answer such questions?