Real Terror Fighters Don't Show Off

Back on the subject of Smirky/Darth's need to cover up their incompetence at capturing actual terrorists by screaming empty boasts, The Rude Pundit has, of course, the perfect sexual metaphor.

More mundanely, but no less accurately, Steve Benen notes the difference between people who scream terrorism but never do anything about it, and people who just quietly go about doing effective law enforcement without resorting to either torture or lies.

I used to maintain a list of the "thwarted" Bush-era terrorist plots that, as additional information came to light, were not even close to what they appeared to be initially. The plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge wasn't quite what it was cracked up to be. Jose Padilla was not actually prepared to detonate a dirty bomb in DC. The plot by the "Seas of David" cult in Miami -- billed by Dick Cheney as being "a very real threat" -- wasn't a very real threat. The facts of the British hijacking plot didn't stand up well to scrutiny, while the plot to attack Los Angeles' Library Tower turned out to be far less serious than we'd been led to believe. Eventually, I gave up -- there were just too many.

Periodically, the Bush administration would, to significant fanfare, claim to have made a major counter-terrorism breakthrough. They'd hold press conferences, and pat one another on the back. Invariably, the claims crumbled upon scrutiny, which only fueled cynicism....

I should add, of course, that it's certainly possible that the Zazi case may, in time, fall into the same category. The facts appear horrifying -- the suspect is believed to have the intent, training, and materials to launch a serious attack -- but time will tell. Karen Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security at New York University law school, said, the Zazi case "actually looks like the case the government kept claiming it had but never did." She added that "the ingredients here are quite scary."

But unlike the Bush era, the Obama team has skipped "the bombast and exaggeration" that was the standard operating procedure of the previous administration.

It's nice having grown-ups running the place for a change.