The monster under the bed

This story makes it pretty clear that not all terrorists threatening large sections of the US strike equal terror in our government (or equal excitement in our press).

On Nov. 28... Demetrius "Van" Crocker was sentenced to 30 years in prison. David Kustoff, the United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, where Crocker was prosecuted, tells Salon that "It was one of the preeminent anti-terrorism cases of 2006 nationwide." Whether or not that is true, few outside of the greater Memphis metropolitan area have ever heard of Crocker. Only one reporter, John Branston of the weekly Memphis Flyer, even covered his entire trial.

This guy wanted to unleash chemical weapons in a major metropolitan area (or maybe nuclear materials near the US capital), idolized McVeigh, was putting together the pieces of his plan in real time. But he was white and American, so no help to the bogeyman scare that's keeping hundreds of uncharged brown people in cruel detainment camps, and we didn't have to break the Constitution to catch him. [Full story at Salon, complete with the obvious comparison to Padilla.]

We are not only governed by children, but by the kind of children who like to fry ants with magnifying glasses, at least as long as nobody's watching...