By DEROY MURDOCK, Scripps Howard News Service

The Obama Administration wisely is considering moving from Manhattan the trial of five September 11 conspirators. Team Obama's original idea of trying Team al-Qaeda in civilian court cannot be scrapped soon enough. Instead, Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his Islamo-fascist brethren should stay at Guantanamo and get what they want: execution.

NEW YORK - The state of our Union is mostly free.

This may shock citizens who call America the "Land of the Free." Alas, as the Heritage Foundation demonstrates, Washington has transformed Francis Scott Key's timeless truths into mere lyrics.

Congressional Republicans are right to savor Senator-elect Scott Brown's stunning victory last Tuesday. Democrat Martha Coakley's self-destructive gaffes notwithstanding, conservative Republican Brown's formidable 52 percent to 47 percent triumph is akin to Democratic Rep.

Tuesday may see a vibrant, photogenic conservative replace the late liberal icon Ted Kennedy in the U.S. Senate. Scott Brown of Massachusetts is surging in the polls, sweeping in donations, and smiling on national TV news shows. (www.BrownforUSSenate.com) Across America, gleeful free-marketeers are pinching themselves and wondering, "Could this really happen?"

"No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise," President Obama told the American Medical Association last June. "If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what."

TEMECULA, Calif. - Where is Nelson Mandela when we need him?

In the fine new film "Invictus," South Africa's first black president inspects his first official paycheck.

"This is terrible," Mandela says. He decides he earns too much and subsequently donates a third of his salary to charity.

TEMACULA, Calif. - While hastily ramming his 2,457-page, $2.5 trillion ObamaCare package through the Senate before Christmas, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) must see himself as Saint Nick. High atop his sleigh, Santa Harry has piled 12 brand-new taxes and six tax-hikes totaling $398.1 billion.

NEW YORK - The Senate's ObamaCare bill is a 2,076-page, $2.5-trillion self-contradiction. It largely would accomplish the exact opposite of what President Barack Obama himself has promised and preached.

"The plan I'm announcing tonight," Obama told a joint session of Congress Sept. 9, "will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government."

NEW YORK - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada recently played the most shopworn trick in the liberal playbook. While debating health-care "reform," he ferociously deployed the race card.

Reid claimed that "ObamaCare" opponents were like those who "dug in their heels and said, 'Slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough about slavery.' "

President Obama flies to Copenhagen Tuesday for a fresh round of taxes and spending. To slay an imaginary beast called "global-warming," Obama and other leaders will discuss a treaty that forces industrialized nations to shake themselves down and enrich the developing world.