Classifying Carlos Bledsoe

Carlos who, you say? How about Abdulhakim Mohammed, the self-described jihadi who shot two Little Rock Army recruiters last summer. The local Commercial Appeal has a lengthy article today focused on his father, who appears to be grief-stricken about losing a son to radicalism. As he said, tomorrow it might be somebody's blond-haired, blue eyed son lost to this ideology--true enough. Maybe Jihad Jane and the woman from Colorado have already proved him correct.

Two things stand out from the article. One, the Little Rock prosecutor Larry Jegley will be trying Bledsoe for standard murder and will not explore any al Qaeda roots:

"All I care about is what he did and what I think I can prove that he did. Whether he claims to be a Martian who flew in here on a spaceship or whatever doesn't matter."

If the name Larry Jegley rings a bell it's because he was all over the place slamming Mike Huckabee after the Washington state police assassinations. Hopefully he'd use the same analogy if the crime allegedly involved Tea Party members.

The second thing is the senior Mr. Bledsoe, who wonders:

He wants to know why his son's case isn't in federal court, and how he was able to buy a gun at a Walmart in Little Rock despite being interviewed previously by the FBI.

Because thankfully American citizens are still allowed to purchase a long rifle in Walmart without passing a background test and Bledsoe had no record. But yes, the FBI questioned him in Nashville after his return from Yemen, which means they knew of him, which again points out the feasibility of a law-enforcement approach to jihadies.

Bledsoe's father isn't alone in questioning why this case is being treated as a garden variety street crime--here's slain soldier William Long's father:

"Being gunned down in uniform by a self-described Islamic warrior obviously does not rise to the level of a terrorist act as far as I can tell under this administration," the retired Marine officer

Oddly enough, it's hard to find any stories detailing whether Bledsoe was interrogated and if so, whether they got anything useful about his ties in Yemen. Odd, because we got all kinds of info about Abdulmuttalob's questioning and how awesomely effective it was, and yet he killed no one. Was the HIG notified? Oh right. Then again, if the government doesn't consider Bledsoe a terrorist it's a moot point anyway. Maybe 60 Minutes will do an investigation.

Let's end this post with some words of wisdom from Mr. Jegley back when he was discussing the Seattle shooting:

I think the clemency power was -- was overused by our former governor. And I think that this is a bitter harvest that we're reaping because of it.

Not sure how engaging in denial will help prevent bitter harvests on this front--maybe it denies the jihadies their publicity--but it also seems to help an administration who heavily demagogued Bush's handling of terror suspects avoid a publicized federal case and a sticky classification decision.