Michelle Malkin, Wrong Again

Four days ago, Michelle Malkin whined that the media wasn't adequately covering the alleged JFK terror plot. The mindset of the media, she felt, was

This wasn't "real." Just a bunch of hapless amateurs. 9/11 was an inside job. Another fear-mongering stunt. Blah blah. Blah.

"Didn't mean to bother the oblivious with reality," she sneered.

Well! Indeed, the thing is -- the 9/11 crack aside -- the "oblivious" appear to be absolutely correct. Via Atrios, Newsday reports:

When U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf described the alleged terror plot to blow up Kennedy Airport as "one of the most chilling plots imaginable," which might have caused "unthinkable" devastation, one law enforcement official said he cringed.

The plot, he knew, was never operational. The public had never been at risk. And the notion of blowing up the airport, let alone the borough of Queens, by exploding a fuel tank was in all likelihood a technical impossibility.

And now, with a portrait emerging of alleged mastermind Russell Defreitas as hapless and episodically homeless, and of co-conspirator Abdel Nur as a drug addict, Mauskopf's initial characterizations seem more questionable -- some go so far as to say hyped.

[snip]

In this case, the alleged plotters had no money and never succeeded in hooking up with the head of an Islamist group in Trinidad called Jamaat al Muslimeen, according to the criminal complaint. While alleged mastermind Defreitas told the FBI informant that he learned to make bombs in Guyana, there is no other indication of technical expertise. Friends say he supported himself by selling incense on street corners and collecting welfare.

In fact, Newsday points out, hyperventilating wingnuts like Malkin actually cause more harm than good:

Steven Simon, a terrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the government's hyperbolic descriptions -- whether of this case or of the alleged plot to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago -- could erode public confidence in law enforcement and lead to confusion about the terror threat.

"First, it creates the public impression that the adversary is just a bunch of losers who do not have to be feared," he said. "Second, the fact that these hapless people are angry enough to seek to attack the U.S. raises the issue of other more competent, well-organized groups that might be escaping police detection."

I look forward to Malkin's apology. I'm sure it will be extensive and non-evasive.