Whistling Dix

The arrest of six people accused of planning a bloodbath at Fort Dix has been presented in the media in a most curious way. There is an aura of celebration about it that is unlike anything I can recall before in similar circumstances. It's being treated as though our team won the World Series. Even buttoned-down CNBC pundit Larry Kudlow could hardly contain his cheerleading.

Let's enjoy our five minutes of self-congratulation, but there's a lot more here to make us uneasy than confident. FOX reports:

A federal law enforcement source confirmed to FOX News that the three — Dritan "Anthony" or "Tony" Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; and Eljvir "Elvis" Duka, 23 — also accumulated 19 traffic citations, but because they operated in "sanctuary cites," where law enforcement does not routinely report illegal immigrants to homeland security, none of the tickets raised red flags.

The brothers entered the United States near Brownsville, Texas, in 1984, the source said, which would put their ages at 1 to 6 when they crossed the border.

The source said there is no record of them entering by way of a regular border crossing, so they are investigating whether they were smuggled into the country.

So what have we learned? Three brothers among the suspects have been living in the United States for 23 years after crossing the border illegally. No one suspected anything -- they were some of the famous "moderate" Muslims. Thanks to the useful idiots who created "sanctuary cities," they were apparently never investigated before, even though they had 19 traffic tickets.

Obviously, we can be grateful that the plot was smoked out and stopped. But many more like it are probably currently under way, and it wasn't primarily shrewd counterterrorism that saved the day, just luck. According to the reports, the case was investigated because of a tip-off. No doubt the authorities handled it well after that, but you can't count on tip-offs to safeguard national security.

To get back to the light-headed joyousness with which the media have delivered the story, at least part of the reason is that it fits comfortably with the mythology of the Liberal Establishment. In that view, the plotters were a handful of Muslim "extremists" (although, as always in these situations, they were "moderate" law abiding citizens until caught); the long arm of the law was sufficient to take them down. We're back in a September 10 world -- terrorism is a law enforcement issue. Militant Islam isn't the problem, just a few criminals, and as this case proves, we've got them clocked. The only thing to worry about is a "backlash" against domestic Muslims by the drooling morons of the American public that the ACLU stands guard against.

I have not read or heard one suggestion in the mainstream press that we ought to reconsider our policy of admitting Muslims to settle in the United States and then playing catch-'em-if-you-can to sort out the violent jihadists. Seems to me it would be a lot safer and less expensive to keep them out in the first place than to invite them in and then try to track them down. But in the Age of Political Correctness, that would be "discrimination," one of the deadly sins. I can't fathom why a sovereign nation shouldn't be able to use discrimination in choosing who it allows to move in, but we'd rather risk a horrendous terror act than offend the members of any group, thanks to liberal ideology.

Well, to hell with liberal ideology. It's no time to stop at plugging leaks. If we know what's good for us, which most Americans except those handicapped by working in Washington or living in "sanctuary cities" do, we need to start patching the holes.