Response to Fareed Zakaria

NYPD’s Religious Profiling – Ta-Nehisi Coates – National – The Atlantic. This where you see the really long-term effects of terrorism. It’s not simply the number of people you murder, it’s how the smallest can alter the character of a country. Some incompetent asshole straps a bomb to his underwear, and now we have to get full body scans. The free exchange of ideas is one of democracy’s greatest benefits. Universities, ostensibly, are supposed to showcase that more than anywhere else. But for want of conjured evil, we’re willing to part with that asset.

Terrorist Plots, Helped Along by the F.B.I. – NYTimes.com. THE United States has been narrowly saved from lethal terrorist plots in recent years — or so it has seemed.

TPM Reader BD: Remember how during the 2008 campaign a lot of people suggested that Obama could prove to be an excellent role model for African-American men who have often been deemed less than responsible as husbands and fathers? Wouldn’t it be great if white Evangelical Republican men could come up with a role model like that too? [From Reader Deep Thought]