Idiot of the Week

Tony Blankley is a disgrace. The lapdog of the Moonie Times laughs like a jackass while advancing a wingnut apology in support of a man who threatened to kill law enforcement officials:

As I write this column here in our nation's capital on the eve of a multi-billion dollar, high-technology war, our security perimeter has been penetrated and downtown traffic has come to a standstill for 14 hours because a North Carolina tobacco farmer, Dwight W. Watson, has driven his John Deere tractor into a pond on the Mall near the Department of the Interior. Mr. Watson, a flag-waving Army veteran, apparently is upset about the government's tobacco subsidy program (as who amongst us is not?) and threatens to blow up his tractor. The formidable threat of an exploding tractor has overwhelmed all the anti-terrorist assets of our capital.

I know our government is doing all it can, but who could have expected an insidious good ol' boy running a tractor into a 3-foot-deep pond? The police are afraid that ol' Dwight has a fertilizer bomb on his tractor. Well, of course they can detect some fertilizer, he's a farmer, for goodness sake. But (perhaps surprisingly, I know my way around a John Deere tractor) there is no where to hide a large quantity of exploding fertilizer on a John Deere � no capacious trunks or hidden compartments � just the gas tank, less than two cubic feet in size (even on the big tractor he is driving). Given the solid quality and thick gauge steel of a John Deere, such a small explosion probably couldn't even disable the tractor, let alone threaten surrounding stone and steel buildings.

The Park Police should just drag Dwight and his John Deere out of the pond, slap him on the wrist and get ready for the real enemies in our midst.

Blankley's plea for sympathy for a man who threatened to kill federal officers is full of distortions, according to legitimate news accounts. The police didn't think Watson had a bomb because they "detected fertilizer" on his tractor; they thought he had a bomb because Watson said he had a bomb and threatened to use it. Watson specifically threatened to harm any law enforcement official who tried to apprehend and disarm him, referencing the Waco incident where four ATF agents were murdered by anti-government lunatics. While it's unlikely Watson could bring down buildings from his position in the reflecting pond, he certainly could have used a bomb or other weapon on any one who approached to "drag him out of the pond."

Watson is a terrorist -- regardless of whether he is also mentally disturbed or was simply lying about his ability to kill. And his past military service and American flag waving don't make him any less of a terrorist.