ANOTHER COLLINS SPEAKS – OH DEAR LAWD – AT 8:01 P.M. ET:  We quote Senator Susan Collins, below, making a terrific statement about terrorism.  Now we switch to another Collins – Gail Collins, op-ed writer and former editorial page editor of The New York Times. 

Ms. Collins, ultra-feminist, sixties monument, and otherwise dependable flake, gives us an insight into the kind of thinking that led The New York Times to sink to the position it's in now.  She's upset, Ms. Collins is, about the reversal, in the last day, of the decision to try the mastermind of 9-11 right in the heart of New York City.  Despite overwhelming public and political opposition, led by Mayor Bloomberg of New York, Gail Collins knows best, and she also knows what really motivated those who demanded the reversal:

...the Justice Department is backing down. The trial will happen somewhere else. People in Lower Manhattan will breathe a sigh of relief.

But this feels very wrong.

Yeah, how dare those people living right near the courthouse express an opinion.

The Bloomberg rebellion fits right into the sour, us-first mood that’s settled over the country. It’s part of the same impulse that caused Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska to decree that a historic overhaul of the country’s messed-up health care system was not going to happen unless his home state got a special exemption from sharing the costs.

Talk about a stretch.

Or the Not-in-My-Backyard uprising that followed President Obama’s attempt to move the Guantánamo prisoners into American maximum-security lockups. No matter how remote the prison, local politicians said that the danger was too great to bear. Both of Montana’s Democratic senators immediately decreed that their entire state was a no-go zone.

All those selfish New Yorkers, not wanting a terrorist bulls-eye painted on their backs again.  All these ridiculous fears.  Why can't they just go along with Eric Holder and his wise lawyers.

It’s all part of a cult of selfishness that decrees it’s fine to throw your body in front of any initiative, no matter how important, if resistance looks more profitable.

Ms. Collins apparently forget to get her Zoloft refilled.

The economy has a lot to do with this. So does Washington’s increasing confidence that Barack Obama can be rolled. We’re currently stuck in a place where people no longer feel as though they need to be part of the solution.

Maybe it's been weeks since the bottle was emptied.

Democrats are starting to join the Republicans’ call to toss out the Constitution and try suspected terrorists in military courts.

This is a medical emergency.  Pills!  Pills!

New York’s sudden resistance certainly wasn’t about safety, even though Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a whiny letter to the White House saying a trial in Manhattan could “add to the threat.”

A classic example of the way ultra-feminists treat other women who don't go along with every comma in the party line.  Suddenly DiFi, one of the real adults in the Senate, is "whiny."

COMMENT:  So, we're terrible people.  But we're really not.  Americans have always been willing to sacrifice, and to put themselves on the line.  But they ask for some serious reason.  If they take a risk for a cause, they want it to be a good cause.  Trying the mastermind of 9-11 in a New York City courtroom is not a good cause.  It's a show.

The people are right.  Gail Collins is wrong.  What else is new?

January 30, 2010