The Nature of Things

...to the president for fulfilling his oath and standing up for the Constitution and for religious liberty by defending the right of Muslims to build their community center and mosque on private property in New York. He could have remained silent. There is certainly no political advantage to his speaking out on this issue because he will be relentlessly excoriated by the demagoguers for his stand. Of course, he is already relentlessly excoriated by them and accused of being everything from an alien to a secret Muslim so really that will be nothing new. Nevertheless, in spite of the potential political cost, he chose to take a stand on the side of the Constitution and morality and common human decency and it is very refreshing to see my president on that side. So, I say "Kudos, Mr. President, and thank you for doing what is right."

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who tried to blow up a plane in Detroit on Christmas Day, is only 23 years old. It seems unlikely that he has a very sophisticated view of the world. I can remember - barely - what I was like at 23, and much more recently, what my children were like at 23. While my children were a lot smarter and a lot more knowledgeable about the ways of the world than I was at that age, I think it is fair to say that none of us really understood the workings of the powers that ruled our world. I strongly suspect the same is true of the would-be underpants bomber. He was susceptible to being led and misled and indications are that he was, particularly by an American-born Yemeni radical cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki. This man also allegedly had ties to the 9/11 attacks and to the soldier who shot up Fort Hood last November. Al-Awlaki is now supposedly somewhere in the mountains of Yemen. Abdulmutallab may have an idea as to where he is, and Abdulmutallab se...