Did Ol' Fred Just Shoot Himself in the Foot, um... Mouth?

From Jonathon Martin at Politico:

Fred wants 'due process' for bin Laden

Fred Thompson said today in South Carolina that Osama bin Laden should be granted "due process."

Speaking to reporters in Greenville, Thompson said the leader of Al Qaeda "needs to be located and killed."

But, according to the AP, the former senator said such a punishment shoudn't be immediately meted out.

''No, no, no, we've got due process to go through'' depending on the circumstances, he said. ''I'm not suggesting those things happen simultaneously.

"Thompson's spokesman didn't immediately reply to a question about what sort of due process the candidate thinks bin Laden should get.

On the campaign trail in Iowa Friday, Thompson downplayed the importance of capturing bin Laden, portraying him as a mere symbol, before saying later in the day that he wanted to see the terrorist leader caught and killed.

But his comments today, in military and veteran-heavy South Carolina, are even more puzzling. The prospect of granting anything but swift and final justice to bin Laden is anathema to the GOP.

Thompson may have been indicating that he wants to extract information out of bin Laden before killing him, but the words "due process" will remind many in the political world of similar language that got Howard Dean in trouble in 2003.

"I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials," Dean told the Concord Monitor as the Democratic primary heated up in late December of that year.

Dean clarified later that he wanted to see bin Laden killed, but the specter of offering a terrorist the sort of legal rights afforded a U.S. citizen was too good for the former Vermont governor's rivals to pass up.

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