A cost of 200 million dollars, hundreds of hours of police overtime, dozens of checkpoints and metal gates to fence off downtown Manhattan loomed at the prospect of the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 9/11 mastermind.

New Yorkers would face disrupted traffic, closed subway stations and restricted access to the Foley Square area where Mohammed would have been tried in court. It would be unlike anything ever seen before.

But it now appears that all that security overkill will not be necessary. KSM will not be tried in federal court as previously announced by US Attorney General Eric Holder.

At first  backing the plan, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly asked for 75 million to hold the trial, and then raised it to 216 million after fear-mongering politicians lined up to denounce the plan and weave doomsday scenarios for their constituents.

Rep. Peter King began hyperventilating, calling the trial “the most irresponsible decision ever made by a president.” King and others warned that using the US court system to try terrorists was an invitation to mayhem. Fox News had its usual field day.

Other Al-Qaida suspects have been tried in federal court and convicted over the past several years – Richard Reid, the Shoe-Bomber. Zacarias Moussaoui, the 20th hijacker, Ramzi Yousef, who helped to plan and carry out the first attack on the World Trade Center. And let’s not forget Timothy McVeigh, a terrorist who perpetrated the largest attack on US  soil until Sept.  11.2001.

None of these trials brought any further incidents of terrorism or caused disruption that brought daily life to halt.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani a suspect in the bombings of the US Embassy in Tanzania and Kenya, has been going back and forth to his pre-trial hearings in Manhattan  federal court for the past year without fences or checkpoints and no one in New York seems to care.

But KSM is different, or so we’re told.  Over time, he’s morphed into a ten-foot terrorist whose very presence threatens us all, despite being locked up for the past three years and water-boarded 186 times. We’re still scared of him, or least some people want us to be.

Unlike the others, KSM has achieved mythic status. Never mind that all the rest of  these once dangerous terrorists are rotting in some supermax prison, KSM is so dangerous no prison can hold him.

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney has done his part, issuing dark warnings about dangers he never really specifies.  That has enabled other fear-mongering politicians to fund-raise off the anxiety of their constituents. Business has been good.

Now Holder has been unable to find a place to hold the trial. It appears that New Yorkers – victims of the worst terrorist attack on US soil- will never have their chance to sit in judgement of  Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

Much to the chagrin of his supporters, President Obama continues to reach out to Republicans in the final push to pass healthcare legislation.

The upcoming healthcare summit with GOP leaders will be televised with Obama doing more outreach to Republicans in Congress than George Bush did over eight years.

The “party of no” has used everything from threats of death panels to charges of socialism to successfully stonewall  Obama and the Democrats. The single House Republican who voted for the healthcare reform bill, Joseph Cao of Louisiana, has pledged not to do so again.  An entire movement of Obama-hating birthers has sprung up to loudly oppose healthcare reform while carrying signs with Nazi swastikas.

Democrats probably thought  Obama was giving lip service to bi-partisanship like most politicians – its nice when you can get it,  but if you can’t screw ‘em. It turns out that is not the case, and  his supporters have been thrown into consternation ever since.  Progressives saw their idea of a single payer or public option jettisoned long ago in an attempt to gain bipartisanship, and his support among them has nose-dived.

Obama truly believes in bi-partisanship – even after months of chasing Olympia Snowe and still getting a no.  He told Republicans in a televised retreat session that he is open to their ideas, even as they reject their own ideas that are included in the bill.

The Blue Dogs have exploited the situation by forming their own ”just say no” wing in the Democratic party.  Joe Lieberman had the smile of undertaker when he finally voted for a bill that he felt certain would never pass, and if it did, it   contained little actual reform. The last true statesman in the Senate – Ted Kennedy – passed away just as the healthcare reform process got underway.

The “us and them” polarization of our government has metastasized over the past 15 years to the monster it is today.  Obama appears to be the only one in Washington who truly wants to be bi-partisan.  Right now, that makes him a party of one.