Another terror try

In an impressive display of this country's anti-terrorism capabilities, New York Police Department detectives and FBI agents on Monday night arrested the prime suspect in Saturday's failed Times Square attack.

But the good work of authorities was bad news for politically correct progressives, who openly hoped the smoking SUV packed with gasoline and propane was the work of Tea Party organizers, Arizona white supremacists or, as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told CBS News' Katie Couric, "somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something."

Alas, police instead apprehended Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old, Pakistan-born, naturalized U.S. citizen who had attended a terrorist training camp in his home country, according to The Associated Press. Pakistani intelligence officials, meanwhile, had taken several people into custody in connection with the attempted bombing.

An Islamic man. With roots in the Islamic world and associations with radicalism. Trying to carry out a terrorist plot against America. Imagine that.

For months, Washington Democrats and their enablers in the mainstream media have been trying to convince Americans that the electorate's growing disenchantment with big government is an imminent threat to public safety. Meanwhile, those who really mean to do us harm -- adherents to radical Islam -- remain coddled by those on the left intent on exercising some perverse devotion to political correctness.

We're supposed to pay no attention to the fact that the 9/11 massacres were carried out by Islamic extremists, that a would-be shoe bomber aboard a jetliner was an Islamic man, that a would-be underwear bomber aboard a Christmas flight to Detroit was an Islamic man, that the Army psychiatrist who gunned down 13 people at Fort Hood was an Islamic man with ties to a radical imam.

Do all Muslims in America and abroad wish harm on this country and its people? Of course not. The fact that Muslims here have seen virtually no reprisals as a result of these sinister acts is a testament to the moral strength of the United States and the tolerance and reason of its people.

But it verges on suicidal to continue to minimize and outright ignore the threat that radical Islam poses to our national security. We've endured three acts of Islamic terrorism in just six months. The only successful attack -- at Fort Hood -- occurred because military brass ignored obvious red flags and kowtowed to the political pressures of multiculturalism and diversity.

The enemy is not an engaged citizenry exercising First Amendment rights. The enemy is radical Islam.