Trump Buys Into the "Good Guy With a Gun" Myth

thepilot.com:

Donald Trump may be bucking the conventional Republican wisdom on many things, such as whether George Dubbya Bush lied us into the Iraq War and whether or not a presidential campaign actually requires you to have money or a campaign staff.

But on the subject of gun violence, he’s right in line with Republican (which is to say NRA) thinking on the solution: MOAR GUNZ!!

In reference to the recent tragic shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the Prince of Orange had this to say:

“If you had guns in that room, if you had — even if you had a number of people having them strapped to their ankle or strapped to their waist where bullets could have flown in the other direction right at him, you wouldn’t have had that tragedy.”

It seems that The Donald has fully bought into the “good guy with a gun” doctrine that’s so prevalent among the ammosexual community. It’s the doctrine which holds that, in an active shooter situation, every armed citizen becomes a steely-eyed gunslinger ready to take out the shooter with one perfectly aimed round, after which they will presumably twirl the gun around one finger before sliding it back into the holster like Val Kilmer in “Tombstone.”

It also appears that in Trumpworld, all of the “good guys” with guns will be on one side of the room with the shooter on the other so the bullets will only be flying in one direction.

There are so many problems with treating this fantasy like reality that it’s hard to know where to start.

For one thing, there was actually a “good guy with a gun” in the Pulse nightclub. His name is Adam Gruler. He’s a 15-year veteran of the Orlando Police Department. He was working security at Pulse, armed, when Omar Mateen showed up and began shooting.

According to the OPD’s own press release, Gruler “engaged in a gun battle” with Mateen before Mateen went “deeper into the club” and “the incident turned into a hostage situation.” The Orlando Sentinel’s investigation states that Gruler, quickly realizing that Mateen had him outgunned, “retreated and called for backup,” which promptly arrived in the form of nearby patrol officers Lt. Scott Smith and Sgt. Jeffrey Backhaus. Smith and Backhaus also “exchanged shots” with Mateen, who then grabbed hostages and retreated to the bathroom where he made his final, fatal stand.

Three “good guys with guns.” And 49 people still died.

So much for that idea, unless you’re saying that everyone in a crowded bar in the wee hours of the morning would be so much safer if all of them were carrying AR-15s and 9mm pistols, just so they’d have parity with terrorist nutballs like Omar Mateen.

Yeah, I can’t think of any way that combination of alcohol and semi-automatic weapons could possibly go wrong. At that point we wouldn’t even need terrorists, because we’d be stacking the bodies like cordwood.

The reports that officers Gruler, Smith and Backhaus “engaged” the gunman, without lethal result, points up another problem with the “good guy with a gun” fantasy.

The RAND corporation did a study in 2008 of the New York Police Department’s performance in gunfights. The average hit rate was 18 percent. That means trained law enforcement officers, who have to qualify on their weapons and keep up their proficiency, missed 82 percent of the time.

This isn’t a slam at law enforcement. Getting shot at tends to be, to say the least, an upsetting experience for anyone. Killing is even harder, even for trained professionals acting in self-defense. And we’re supposed to believe that amateurs will do better?

Hey, look, I write thriller fiction when I’m not doing this column or practicing law. I understand the attraction of the fantasy where Joe Everyman can rise to the occasion and take down the bad guys with the gun he just picked up. Sometimes it even happens in real life. But I’m not putting all my faith in that as a solution.

“Good guy with a gun” is a classic example of trying to shut the barn door after the horse has left, come back with a torch, and burn the barn to the ground. Why not do things like close the gun show loophole, make background checks universal, and try to keep bad guys from getting guns in the first place?

Chris Christie: EBOLA FIGHTER!

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome once again to the Thrilling Radio Hour. Tonight, we bring you another slam-bang episode of our most popular show — “Chris Christie, Ebola Fighter”! Brought to you by Panicwear, the last word in stylish hazmat suits for the whole family! Dad, Mom, even the kiddies, will look and feel their best in these full-body suits designed for Panicwear by Ralph Lauren. Remember, if it’s not Panicwear, you’re gonna die horribly! AAAAAAHHHHHH! Now, on to our story…

As our show opens, Gov. Christie is waiting on the tarmac at Newark Airport, along with his faithful aide and sidekick Wazoo.

WAZOO: De plane, Boss! De plane!

CHRISTIE: I see it, Wazoo. Get ready. We’re about to face our most dangerous enemy.

WAZOO: Another ethics investigation, boss?

CHRISTIE: No, Wazoo, even worse. There’s a nurse on that plane. And she’s been in Africa!

WAZOO: A nurse? Africa? Oy gevalt, boss!

CHRISTIE: Wait, when did you start speaking Yiddish?

WAZOO: Hey, is it my fault the scriptwriters could never settle on my exact ethnicity?

CHRISTIE: Never mind, Wazoo. Here she comes.

ANNOUNCER: As the nurse exits the plane, Gov. Christie steps forward, hand raised bravely.

CHRISTIE: Stop right there!

NURSE: What? Hey, aren’t you …

CHRISTIE: That’s right, filthy disease carrier. It is I! Chris Christie, Ebola Fighter! (MUSIC FANFARE) And I quarantine you in the name of the law!

NURSE: But … I don’t have Ebola! I don’t even have a fever!

CHRISTIE: That’s exactly what you’d say if you did have Ebola! Wazoo, to the quarantine tent with her!

WAZOO: You got it, boss!

NURSE: No! Wait! Aaaah!

ANNOUNCER: As Gov. Christie turns away from his vanquished foe, an interfering busybody steps up.

BUSYBODY: Excuse me sir, are you a doctor?

CHRISTIE: I don’t need to be a doctor! I am Chris Christie, Ebola Fighter! (MUSIC FANFARE)

BUSYBODY: I thought not. If you were, you’d know that there’s no danger of Ebola infection from someone not showing symptoms. And only then if you have contact with bodily fluids from an infected person.

CHRISTIE: Hold on there, pal! Are you a doctor?

BUSYBODY: As a matter of fact, I am. An infectious disease specialist, actually.

CHRISTIE: And did you just get off a plane from Africa?

BUSYBODY: No, Amsterdam.

CHRISTIE: Close enough. You didn’t think Chris Christie, Ebola Fighter (MUSIC FANFARE) would know that there are flights from Africa to Amsterdam? Your cunning plan to infect the populace has failed! Take him away!

WAZOO: Yes, boss.

BUSYBODY: Wait! No! Aaaah!

CHRISTIE: Hmmph. Silly liberals and their “degrees.” And their “geography.” Don’t they know I have leadership to display?

WAZOO: Hey, boss, we got a problem …

CHRISTIE: Wait! All those little men. In uniform. What are they doing here?!

WAZOO: Ummm … that’s a Boy Scout troop from Ottumwa, Iowa. They’re getting ready to fly back home after visiting New York.

CHRISTIE: New York?! There’s Ebola there! Quarantine them immediately!

WAZOO: But there’s no more room in the tent, boss! That’s the problem I was trying to tell you about!

CHRISTIE: What!? Well, then, wrap those Boy Scouts head-to-foot in Saran Wrap!

WAZOO: They’ll suffocate, boss! And the people already in the quarantine tent have cellphones! They’ve gotten hold of the media!

CHRISTIE: Not to worry, Wazoo! The media love me. I help them preserve the fiction that my whole party hasn’t gone off the deep end.

WAZOO: I’m not sure this is helping, boss. But they’re also contacting civil rights lawyers. Something about you not having the authority to lock people up just on your word. Especially when there’s zero evidence that they’re actually sick.

CHRISTIE: But I’m Chris Christie, Ebola Fighter!

(LONG PAUSE)

CHRISTIE: Hey! Where’s my music fanfare?

WAZOO: The trumpet player got quarantined, boss. Turns out he has a great-aunt in Mozambique. There’s no Ebola there, but, you know, you can’t be too careful.

CHRISTIE: (Sighs heavily) Oh, all right. Let everyone go. But be sure we do a press release telling everyone I’m still right about everything.

WAZOO: Yes, boss.

ANNOUNCER: Tune in next week for another episode of Thrilling Radio Hour! Next week’s installment: Chris Christie, Ebola Fighter, meets ISIS! And remember: if you’re not in constant fear, you’re not a real American! Good night, and God help us all!

THE GOBSHITES RESPOND: Weekly commentator "Francis", who often has his response up within fifteen minutes of the column being posted on the Pilot's website, responds in the fashion we've come to expect from the Party of Love:
Some deserve a long agonizing death, not quick, but slow and painful, then they too will understand just how those who have contacted this virus felt before dying, sorta of takes the humor out of the subject don't ya think.[sic]

But don't forget folks, it's the liberals who are filled with hate. 

When In Danger Or In Doubt, Run In Circles, Scream and Shout

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

OK, everybody, just calm the heck down. Ebola is not going to kill you.

You’re more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to die of Ebola. You’re more likely to die of food poisoning (as 3,000 people a year do) than you are of Ebola. You’re even more likely to get killed by a guy shooting up your workplace, school, or local McDonald’s than you are by Ebola.

Now, don’t you feel better?

It’s true that there have now been a whopping three reported cases of Ebola in the U.S. The first was Thomas Duncan, who apparently contracted the disease while visiting his relatives in Liberia. He then apparently lied about his exposure to the disease to Liberian authorities before returning here. (Liberia threatened to prosecute him for that, but the poor fellow died before they could.)

The other two victims are health care workers who treated Duncan, all of whom caught Ebola in the only way you can: by contact with the bodily fluids of a person showing symptoms.

This last part is key: You’re only infectious if you’re showing symptoms. This is why that second nurse, who got on an airplane to go to Cleveland to plan her wedding after treating Duncan, most likely hasn’t infected anyone.

Just to be on the safe side, the people on the plane with her are getting checked, but unless she was both (1) symptomatic; and (2) drooling, bleeding, spitting, sweating on, or otherwise enfluidizing her fellow passengers, they should be in the clear. (Yes, I made that word “enfluidizing” up. Maybe it’ll catch on.)

The biggest fear people have about Ebola seems to be the possibility that it will suddenly mutate and go airborne, meaning you wouldn’t have to come into contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids to get it. If that happened, you could get it just by being in the same room with an infected person.

But, as Granddaddy used to say, “If a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his butt when he jumps.” Which is to say, Ebola’s not airborne, and the chances of it getting that way are — well, the aforementioned frog has about as good a chance of developing wings.

Don’t just take my word for it, or even Grandaddy’s. Dr. Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, a man who’s been doing research on viruses since 1975, writes in his blog: “We can ask: Has any human virus ever changed its mode of transmission? The answer is no. We have been studying viruses for over 100 years, and we’ve never seen a human virus change the way it is transmitted.”

HIV, he notes, can still only be transmitted via sex, dirty needles, or childbirth. Same for Hepatitis C. Both have infected millions, and they haven’t changed the way they do it. Ever.

Sure, you can say, “Just because we’ve never seen a virus change how it spreads before doesn’t mean it won’t this time.” But you could just as easily say, “Just because we’ve never seen a virus mutate so as to cause people to turn into flesh-eating zombies doesn’t mean one never will.”

This isn’t a scary thriller novel. It’s not a disaster movie. We don’t live in Africa. There’s no need to stock up on plastic sheeting and duct tape. This can be contained, and it will be.

The kind of hysteria we’ve seen, with CNN trotting out thriller author Robin Cook as not only an expert but as “the man who wrote the book on Ebola,” when what he wrote was an admittedly entertaining but fanciful novel, is irresponsible.

The man’s pre-author job was as an ophthalmologist, for crying out loud. For him to say, “This kind of an illness is probably the scariest thing we can deal with,” is not only not helpful, it’s downright dangerous. Hysteria, for example, is a lot scarier, because it makes people do terrible things.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” is as true a statement now as it was when FDR said it. Maybe even more so.

Okay, Fellows, Listen Up...

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Today, friends, I’d like to address my words to the men in the audience, specifically the young men.

See, some among you have developed some strange ideas about the way things are and how they ought to be — particularly as those things pertain to the female gender.

What drew my attention to this subject was the brutal rampage of young Elliot Rodger, who, fueled by rage and a sense of thwarted privilege, stabbed three people to death in his Southern California apartment before taking to the streets, shooting two young women outside a sorority house, then killing another young man in a deli before turning the gun on himself.

Often, when this sort of thing happens, people are left wondering, “What would cause someone to do a terrible thing like this?” In Rodger’s case, however, he left plenty of explanation, including a 140-page written screed and a video recorded from inside his BMW. In both, Rodger chillingly describes the upcoming “Day of Retribution.”

His grievance? Women didn’t want to have sex with him.

His was the cry we’ve heard for years from unfulfilled nerds and other guys whose interaction with the females in their lives exist in that tortured limbo known as the “Friend Zone.”

“I’m the perfect guy,” Rodger says, “and yet you throw yourselves at these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman.” But most don’t go as far into the darkness as young Elliot when he concludes with, “I can’t wait to give you exactly what you deserve. Utter annihilation.”

This horrifying manifesto apparently struck a chord with some males. Some even put up fan pages for Rodger on Facebook. Some, inevitably, tried to put the blame on women.

“More people will die unless you give men sexual options,” claimed the website ReturnofKings.com, a mainstay of what’s known as, God help us, the Pick-Up Artist community (PUA for short). The subscribers to the PUA philosophy claim to use the psychological principles of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) to manipulate unsuspecting women (called “targets”) into sex. The techniques are collectively known as “game,” and they’ll teach them to you for the price of an instructional DVD (or several).

If Elliot Rodger had only had better “game,” some PUA websites insist, none of this would have happened, and did we mention we have a DVD to sell?

PUA claims to be the answer for every guy who’s ever wailed, “I’m a nice guy. I’m a gentleman. Why do all the hot women I know just want to be friends?” I suppose the PUA solution of becoming a manipulative, scheming sociopath is better than Elliot Rodger’s answer of killing people, but that’s not saying much.

Perhaps I can offer an alternative. Understand, I’m not holding myself out as some kind of Love Guru, but my time on this Earth has taught me a few things about life that I’ll just lay on you right now:

First, being a “nice guy” and a “gentleman” is the least that’s expected of you by the world in general. It’s the baseline. It doesn’t entitle you to anything other than the knowledge that you’re not a jackass. It certainly doesn’t entitle you to a woman. You need to bring something else to the conversation other than that bare minimum and your raw need.

If you want people (and hey, guess what, women are people) to be interested in you, then you need to be interesting. Do something. Be something. And by “be something,” I mean something more than a desperate horn-dog who sees every aspect of his life through the lens of “will this get me into bed with a woman?”

Oh, and if you’re being a “nice guy” and a “perfect gentleman” for no other reason than because you think it’s going to get women in bed with you, then I have a bit of sad news: You’re not really a nice guy or a gentleman. You’re just acting like one for advantage. Like the PUA’s “game,” this is the sort of thing sociopaths do.

Years of movies, TV, even video games have taught us the wrong lesson: that if we’re just good enough, nice enough, or persistent enough, every guy can get the hot babe of his dreams. When it doesn’t work out that way (see “not really a nice guy,” above), some get bitter and fill a thousand Internet message boards with misogynistic bile. Some turn to the codified sociopathy peddled to them by the PUA snake-oil salesmen.

Tragically, some, like Elliot Rodger, become violent. That’s not going to change until our attitudes do and we start thinking of women as people, not “targets” or rewards.

Wingnuts: We Don't Want War, But Everything Else Makes Obama a Wuss

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

The Republicans and their captive media are saying a great many things about the Russian incursion into Ukraine, but there’s one thread that runs through it all: It’s not Vladimir Putin’s fault, it’s all Barack Obama’s.

For example, some commentators, such as The Washington Post’s Mark Thiessen and Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin, claim that President Obama’s “weakness” in Syria somehow “emboldened” Putin to invade Ukraine.

Oh, really? What weakness was that? The weakness where, under threat of U.S. bombing, the Assad regime caved and agreed to dismantle its chemical weapons stockpile?

Or maybe they think it was “weakness” not to defy the will of the American people and put American boots on the ground in a complicated, many-sided religious-based conflict which would have us fighting alongside elements of al-Qaida. That would have been insane recklessness and wrong-headed adventurism that would make the Iraq debacle look like the pinnacle of strategic brilliance, but it wouldn’t look weak.

According to a story in The Washington Post, Sen. John McCain called the Russian aggression “the ultimate result of a feckless foreign policy in which nobody believes in America’s strength anymore,” even as he admitted that the U.S. “does not have a realistic military option to force Russian troops to withdraw.”

In another forum, McCain suggested sanctions on Russia, which the administration is considering. How much you want to bet if they do what McCain suggests, he’ll still call them weak?

At least the folks at Fox News had a more measured response. “Even if [the president] wanted to help … we simply don’t have the ground forces to do it,” said Bill O’Reilly. “And confronting the Russians in the air would lead to major hostilities that the USA cannot afford right now.”

Frequent Foxista Charles Krauthammer agreed: “Well, obviously it’s beyond our control. The Russians are advancing. There is nothing that will stop them. We are not going to go to war.”

Oh, wait, my mistake. Those quotes from Fox were from 2008, when the Russians invaded another neighbor, Georgia. You know, back when we had a president of Fox’s preferred party, a president who claimed to have “looked into Putin’s soul,” a president who still bears no blame for anything he did in the minds of the right.

Now, when “that one” is in the White House, we have Steve Doocy saying that the president “hasn’t done much” to solve the situation, and Bill O’Reilly claiming that the crisis occurred because Obama has “lost moral authority.”

Meanwhile, the Fox Nation website put up a page of video of Putin doing, as they described it, “macho things,” including the inevitable horseback riding with his shirt off. Frankly, the only thing creepier that Putin’s constantly releasing videos of his shirtless self is the right’s panting obsession with his “manliness.”

Perhaps the purest expression of the right wing’s attitude was capsulized by Mister 9/11 himself, Rudy Giuliani. Speaking to Fox’s Neil Cavuto, Rudy revealed that what he really admires and wants in an executive is ruthless dictatorial strong-arming:

“Putin decides what he wants to do and he does it in half a day, right? He decided he had to go to their parliament. He went to their parliament. He got permission in 15 minutes. He makes a decision and he executes it, quickly. Then everybody reacts. That’s what you call a leader. President Obama, he’s got to think about it. He’s got to go over it again. He’s got to talk to more people about it.”

There you have it, folks. To the right, Obama’s problem is that he’s not more like the dictator Vladimir Putin. Of course, when the president does do something, they scream that he’s worse than Hitler.

I’ve been critical in these pages of President Obama’s foreign policy, but I can tell you this, without reservation: I am so glad right now that he’s president and that John McCain and Rudy Giuliani aren’t.

John Kerry’s gone to Kiev and other capitals to show our support for the current Ukraine government and drum up more, our NATO allies are meeting to discuss how to deal with the crisis, the G7’s suspending preparations for the planned G8 summit in Sochi. And all the while, the president works with our international partners to create further steps to isolate Russia as punishment for its aggression.

Meanwhile, the saber-rattlers claim not to want military action, but criticize every option short of it as puny and weak — even options they themselves have suggested.

As Barney Frank once said, in a saying that should be the slogan of the Democratic Party, “We’re not perfect, but they’re nuts.”

The Wannabe Wolverines

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One of my favorite movies in the so-bad-it's-awesome genre is director John Milius' 1984 right-wing paranoid fever dream "Red Dawn."

This American cinematic masterpiece tells the story of a group of teenagers who take to the hills and engage in an insurgency against an invading Soviet/Cuban force that, for some reason, begins the conquest of the United States by attacking a high school in the hinterlands of Colorado.

Naming themselves the "Wolverines" after their local sports mascot, the plucky teens (played by, among others, Patrick Swayze and a pre-insanity Charlie Sheen) disrupt and sabotage the occupation, all while maintaining their perfect '80s hair.

 It was a fun movie, largely because it was so completely absurd, sort of like Milius' other '80s masterpiece, "Conan the Barbarian."

Sadly, however, a lot of America's current gun debate seems to be driven by people who think this movie is some sort of manual for political action. We need to have high-powered military-style weapons, they assert, in case we have to take to the hills and go full Wolverine, this time against our own government.

Their poster child is James Yeager, the fellow from Tennessee who declared on YouTube that he was going to get his gun, fill his backpack with food, and "start killing people" over executive orders that no one had even read yet.

You know, I remember when even mildly criticizing the President Who Must Not Be Named in a newspaper column was enough to draw angry letters and emails accusing me of treason. It was, after all, a time of war. Now, a few years later, we're still supposed to be at war, but these Wannabe Wolverines talk openly about needing assault weapons and lots o' bullets to commit actual treason because they're mad at Barack Obama for - well, they're just mad at Barack Obama.

As we've seen from the example of Mr. Yeager above, the president doesn't really have to have done anything to excite their rage. I'm not sure what the Wannabe Wolverines think they're going to do, even with the most tricked-out AR-15, against an Army that can field attack helicopters, artillery, bombers, drones, tanks, etc.

If you really follow their "logic," then the right to bear arms would also include the right to anti-tank weapons, land mines, shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, etc. But, you know, that would be crazy.

So let's leave aside teenage-movie fantasies about taking on The Man with the AR-15 in your gun safe. Let's recall Justice Scalia's statement in the landmark D.C. v. Heller case that "the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose" and approving of the "historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons." So why not a blanket ban on assault weapons?

Well, the last time we tried to do that, it didn't work too well, largely because they tried to define "assault weapon" using the same criteria the medieval peasants in the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" used to ID a witch: "It looks like one!"

Many of the characteristics that defined a banned weapon were cosmetic: folding stocks, pistol grips, barrel shrouds and the like. Manufacturers found it childishly easy to circumvent the law by making minor changes and giving the banned weapon a new model number. They didn't address the core characteristic that made people want to ban assault weapons, then and now: the ability to mow down lots of people, very fast, without reloading.

I've said before that the problem of gun violence in this country can be summed up as "too many guns in the hands of too many crazy people." Upon reflection, I'd amend that to "too many guns able to throw too many bullets in the hands of too many crazy people."

To solve this problem, we need a solution that addresses all of those. That means better mental health services, better background checks, and - yes - some limitation on the availability of high-power, high-capacity weapons.

While polls show that a simple "assault weapons" ban sounds good to a majority of Americans, to just slap on a ban and walk away thinking the problem's solved would be as simple-minded as the fantasies of the Wannabe Wolverines. In the words of another great film, it's not our job to be as confused as they are.

All kidding and all film references aside, life is not like the movies. Complicated problems require multifaceted solutions, and we need to start considering all our options and not let the entire conversation being about one kind of weapon.

"Lawyering Up" Doesn't Always Mean Clamming Up

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When I heard about the attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, I immediately thought two things.

The first was, "Thank God everyone's all right." (Except, it seems for the hapless Abdulmutallab, whose attempt to set off a liquid explosive in his underwear succeeded only in causing severe burns to his intimate areas. I confess I'm a bad person, because I laughed hard.)

The second thought I had was, "Hey, what's that giant whirring sound?"

That sound was, it turns out, the Right Wing Spin Machine firing up, ready to politicize this near-tragedy for all it was worth. President Obama, it seems, had done nothing right. He had stayed on his Christmas vacation in (gasp!) Hawaii rather than go on TV immediately, pat us on the head and "reassure" us that we were safe from Scary Dark-Skinned People with bombs in their underwear.

His Justice Department had chosen to indict Abdulmutallab and prosecute him in the civilian justice system rather than send him to Gitmo and put him in front of a Super Secret Military Tribunal. My God, Pat Buchanan sputtered on the Sunday after the attempt, he hasn't even been tortured yet!

But the thing that apparently put the worst twist in the wingnuts' knickers was that Abdulmutallab was - I can hardly bear to even say it - read his Miranda rights upon his capture!

If you've watched any television cop shows in the last 40 years, you know the Miranda warning by heart: You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, etc. It's called the Miranda warning after the name of the case, Miranda vs. Arizona, which established the principle that a defendant had to be informed of these rights before being interrogated by the police.

Despite the outcry at the time (and ever since), it wasn't all that new or radical a principle: Both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the FBI's procedures required that a suspect be informed of his right to remain silent and of his right to counsel. But, as everyone knows, the FBI and the military were, then as now, well-known hotbeds of liberalism.

Now, it might seem strange that all this fuss was being made over the Undiebomber being charged in civilian court, while the same people never complained when the so-called "Shoe Bomber," Richard Reid, got the same treatment. Reid committed almost exactly the same acts during the Bush administration, and Dubbya didn't interrupt his vacation or make a statement about the attempt for six days.

The reaction from the Right? (Cue sound of crickets chirping.)

Both Republican Sen. Kit Bond and wingnut emeritus Newt Gingrich have struggled and failed in public to make some distinction, with Gingrich finally falling back on a time-honored tactic: making stuff up. Reid got the benefits of civilian law and the Undiebomber shouldn't, Gingrich said, because Reid's an American citizen. (Not true. Reid is actually British.)

But, the objection goes, if you let a suspect lawyer up, he'll clam up. You won't get any good intelligence from him! More Scary Dark-Skinned People might be coming to kill us! Aaaaaaaah!

Real life and real lawyering, however, are a good bit different from an episode of "Law & Order." The last instructions a terrorist gets from his commanders may be "resist until death," but any halfway decent lawyer, given a client like the Undiebomber who was caught in the act, is not, I guarantee you, giving that advice.

He's very likely telling his client, "Look here, Slim, your chances of walking out of here whistling are exactly zero. Maybe you need to start trying to save as much of your own behind as you can, with the only thing you've got that they want: names, places and methods."

And, it appears, that's exactly what's happening with Abdulmutallab. There've been some fits and starts; he was originally quite forthcoming with the intel, then did clam up for a while. But after his family was allowed to see him, Abdulmutallab has reportedly been "cooperating on a daily basis" and providing "actionable intelligence that could help prevent terror attempts on U.S. soil."

OK, so it's not as much fun for wingnuts as torturing him might be. But it's undoubtedly working better. And we don't have to abandon real American principles like the Rule of Law to do it.

Life Is Not Like the Movies....

From AOL News:

A New York woman has filed a lawsuit against a wedding guest who allegedly announced during the ceremony she had been having an affair with the groom, the New York Post reports.

Sandrina and Harold Purdum, both 31, wed last September in South Ozone Park, a neighborhood in Queens. In a civil suit filed in Queens Supreme Court, Sandrina Purdum claims that guest Jennifer Angevine -- who was Harold's boss at the time -- ruined her special day with an outburst in which she allegedly tossed a drink on another guest and poked the bride in the chest while making the stunning claim.

"Me and Harry were good together. You had to ruin everything by marrying him. You f- - -ed everything up," Sandrina Purdum quotes Angevine, also 31, as saying in the suit. Harold Purdum, who denies having an affair with Angevine, quit his job following the wedding and has not found employment since, the paper reported.

Funny, this sort of thing always works out so well in romantic comedies.