I’ve been doing this all wrong. I have been dutifully showing up roughly every Friday night and delivering this post for months now, and I have asked for nothing in return. Oh, sure, a compliment in the comments, or a link, or maybe even a bit of well-reasoned pushback—those are all good, but I don’t require that in advance to write this post. Hell, I don’t even expect, no less demand, that you read all the way to the end. Well, I had a bit of a revelation today, and I am telling you, that all ends right here. I am holding out. No more Mr. Easy Post. I have some things I, um, need in advance.

I said this much closer to 9/11/01, and I’ll say it again now: America is a big, strong, wealthy country with a rich history and a time-tested tradition of civil adjudication. What happened eight years ago was deplorable, sad, and horrible to witness, but it wasn’t anything close to an attack that could threaten America and American identity. . . unless we let it.

I didn’t think it needed saying, but obviously it does: Having to sit through a half-day’s worth of partisan wrangling, where you have access to water, food, staff, and the warm glow of TV cameras is not worse than (or even akin to) years of indefinite detention in a prison cell on a remote island, cut off from anyone you know or love, subject to routine abuse and frequent torture, all conducted under a cloak of official secrecy, outside the rule of law, without any recourse or any reasonable expectation that this hell will ever end. Further, such jocular comparisons are singularly insensitive to the denigration of human rights perpetrated under the color of authority, and, what’s more, are not in the least bit funny.

You don't negotiate with terrorists.

12 dead, 31 wounded. One confirmed shooter shot but now confirmed alive and out of surgery. Much more below.