I do not like them, Sam-I-am

Former Senator Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, is warning the nation that we are not prepared for a nuclear terrorist attack. Here's some news: We are not prepared for any kind of terrorist attack, especially when you consider how hard we have worked to invite terrorists to attack us. But Nunn has a lot of room to talk: It was he and fellow bigot, Colin Powell, who absolutely insisted how demoralizing it would be to have gays in the military. (Powell, who has a limited sense of irony, used the exact arguments against gays that had been used against blacks.) Consequently, the few (I know, what were we doing with a mere handful of Arabic-reading people?) people who could read Arabic were discovered to be gay and got the boot, making it more difficult for us to intercept terrorists' communications.

Richard Clarke's book, Against All Enemies, makes it clear that the FBI has been totally useless in combating terrorism. When you add to that the turf wars that have ensued and throw in a ban on the only members of the military who could interpret priority communications, you realize how little anyone in charge cares about preventing terrorist attacks. Nunn, for his part, should be looking at the big picture, not at his fantasies about what happens in Army showers.