The Age of American Unreason.

I finally picked up tonight, after possessing it for a year, purchased on recommendation from a friend, Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason. Because I'm only beginning to grasp the supposition of the book - or rather, because I'm inclined to agree with my own limited understanding of the book's direction - I came across this bit of illogical and paranoid garbage, below, on a blog by Timothy Birdnow.

The quote, a few paragraphs of something much longer that you may have more patience with than I do, is a screed of silliness, a perfect bit of hyperbolic, irrational unreason:

Besides Atty. Gen. Holder’s working for a law firm that defended Guantanamo terrorists, the decision to hold the trial of the five Guantanamo terrorists in New York City was the inspiration of the terroristic attempt in the skies over Detroit.

Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab could have gone into the airplane’s many bathrooms anywhere between Amsterdam and Detroit, but he wanted to near the end of the flight to be in a position to go on trial in Detroit if he failed, in a city in an area with the largest Muslim population concentration in America.

The plan was and is, in my opinion, planned to get Muslims on a civilian jury (Obama would not be turning him over to a military tribunal) and have a hung jury not convict Mutallab, thus further demoralizing Americans and making them feel they are impotent to stop a terrorist attack and the advancement of jihad.

Reports at Atlas Shrugs and other sources state that Muallab did not resist when attacked by the passengers and crew. That means the terrorist, once failing to ignite a bomb, was in a position to stand trial in a Detroit area courtroom. If he had fought, he might well be killed, as happened to the Westerner who attempted to violently open an airliner cabin door in a flight approaching Salt Lake City almost a year before 9/11 (no Federal charges were filed against the passengers). http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2000/Sep-17-Sun-2000/news/14407481.html

The reasoning Birdnow throws out is hardly worth bringing up but it is typical of so much of the falsehoods and poor logic applied to the political and criminal actions taking place in the US right now - it is a situational explanation for a terrorist's act that irrationally requires that 1. The bomber expected to fail, 2. In doing so, he schemed to get tried in Detroit 3. Because Detroit has a lot of Muslims, he expected a hung jury 4. And believed that a hung jury would demoralize America (which of course is already demoralized because it is led by a black president who naturally, because of his color and middle name, is soft on terrorism.)