A Case Of Embarrassment

The Bush administration was dealt a great embarrassment last week.

President Bush himself referred to the Richardson, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief (HLF) as a front for designated terrorists back in December 2001.

But a jury of 12 Texans thought otherwise after 19 days of deliberation in federal district court in Dallas last Monday.

In fact, the jurors were so hung up that the judge declared a mistrial and cleared one of the five defendants of all his 32 charges save one.

The prosecution tried to scare the jury into believing the defendants were illegally funding a designated terrorist organization, HAMAS, in Palestine.

Its tactics failed.

None of them worked. Not the videos showing free political speech. Not the unidentified Israeli intelligence officer who was paid to testify. Not the familial relations among one of the defendants to a HAMAS leader.

It was the U.S. government