Fareed Zakaria and Peter Beinart both argue that we should not panic in response to the underwear bomber, foolish overreactions being part of what terrorists are after. I agree with everything they write except their premise: that Americans have reacted hysterically. I don't believe that the typical American has responded to the plot by demanding increased screening for all passengers, for example, to cite one of the examples of foolish overreaction that Zakaria uses. Such proposals have in fact received a vigorous pushback, including in the media that the authors use as a foil.
No, the "typical American" hasn't reacted hysterically. The typical Republican on the other hand? Bill Kristol declared the failed bombing a "victory" for al-Qaeda. Brit Hume said that "this was — this was an attack that didn’t succeed on the scale it was expected to but did succeed." Pete Hoekstra began raising money off the incident, saying of the Democratic Party that "their leaders are making decisions that should frighten us all." As Matt Duss pointed out, disgraced Bush administration official Lurita Doan proclaimed, "I am sorry to report that the attack was a actually a huge success." Dick Cheney, Peter King, and other Republicans attacked the president for not reacting hysterically.
I'm glad that Ponnuru is being so sensible. Maybe he can persuade some of his fellow Republicans to stop acting like they're al-Qaeda's unofficial PR Firm.
-- A. Serwer
