After an initial delay, Faisal Shahzad, the failed Times Square car bomber, stood up today in a federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan and entered a plea of “guilty”.

Read Daphne Eviatar’s observations from today’s hearings with Eric Holder and the House Judiciary Committee.

The Miranda rule means the government doesn’t later have to spend months arguing in court over whether a suspect’s statements were voluntary or coerced.

Everyone knows that the Republican Party thinks there are things that are fine when they do it but are a problem when anyone else does them. This is the It-Okay-If-Your-A-Republican or IOIKYR meme. It is starting to look as though there is another one, MIOFWP or Miranda-Is-Only-For-White-People.

We have heard the predictable and flatly wrong whines from Republicans that terror suspects like Umar Abdulmutallab (the Fruit of the Boom attempted bomber) should not be given any kind of rights, regardless of years of Supreme Court decisions that require it and the highly successful prosecutions that have arisen from them. They are “terrorists” and the must be put in to the hands of the military tribunal system!

Right up to the point where the FBI and Homeland Security announced that Faisal Shahzad was the suspected Time Square attempted bomber the silence from Republicans was deafening. As long as it was thought that the suspect might be a middle aged bald white guy, well there was no talk about throwing him into the military system. Now that it is clear he is a naturalized citizen of Pakistani extraction, the usual suspects are coming out of the woodwork bleating that he should be treated differently than other citizens.

An army of political pundits is crying foul over the transfer of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to the federal criminal court system.