Remora

Fox Butterfield has long been the NYT's point man in their war against gun ownership. His article in today's paper has that over the top, blind feeling of an idea metastasized - a cognitive tumor, if you will. That is, if you have that lingering nostalgia for the bill of rights that effuses Limited Inc now and then.

Here's the beginning graf:

"The Justice Department has refused to let the F.B.I. check its records to determine whether any of the 1,200 people detained after the Sept. 11 attacks had bought guns, F.B.I. and Justice Department officials say."

You can see Mr. Butterworth's indignation and astonishment that the illegal detention of a village full of innocent people was not thorough enough to cover their arms purchases. Such coddling! Such mindless respect for that last teensy human right! These are, after all, foreigners, or at least they have foreign names. In the long tradition of liberals being more ultra than the Pope, here's the NYT's ace reporter wondering why the Gov willfully impedes the total enjoyment of its victims -- Imagine, if you will, the great FDR being stopped by such tawdry constitutional considerations when it came to impounding Japanese Americans. Precedent, you know, weighs heavily. And all that.

Of course Dem legislators are cited who gravely shake their fists at the mamby pamby Bush regime. It makes us feel, here at Limited Inc., like, well, going down to the gun store.