What was he told?

Barack Obama has changed his mind on more than enough issues to warrant the F-F label. He flip-flopped on the campaign finance issue, on the Palestinian question, on lobbyists, on earmarks, on the torture photos, on his first act as President being to sign an abortion rights bill, and now on the question of whether captive terrorists should be tried by military tribunals or civilian courts.

Some of Obama's flip-flopping (such as on campaign finance) is politics as usual, and as such deserves censure. But some of it is a little more forgivable, more a matter of his initial idealism running up against the hard realities of governing.

An example of the latter has been his change of heart regarding what to do with the captured terrorists. He has obviously been briefed by the CIA and NSA regarding foiled terrorist plots, the players involved, and what is still being plotted. What he has heard has obviously frightened him into changing his mind.

We kept hearing during the Bush administration about the many terrorist plans for wreaking widespread havoc on American soil, which never came fruition because of our government's vigilance. (We didn't hear the details, just that they were foiled.) New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who has been privy to some of this information, has devoted a fair amount of his manpower to an anti-terrorism task force.

It would certainly be interesting to find out the details of exactly what the jihadists had/have in mind for us.