THE PANIC ROOM. I see conservatives still believe that the shortest path to Republican victory is terrorizing the citizens. John Podhoretz complains that in the wake of the Times Square non-explosion, public officials have sought to calm rather than terrify, which he considers paternalistic:

The American people are far more sophisticated about these things than those officials appear to believe, and they can be talked to like adults... When [crisis-management] is done well, there should be no sugar-coating. The impulse to sugar-coat is a mark of the conviction among politicians that they are in the same relation to the body politic as a parent is to a child.

He's got a point. Ronald Reagan really did the nation a disservice by fobbing off that "slipped the surly bonds of earth" bullshit off on us when the Challenger blew up. He should have speculated aloud to a stunned nation about the astronauts' final moments of screaming terror, the devastating impact, and their atomized remains. That's leadership!

We're talking about a car stuffed with fertilizer that didn't blow up. I hope Podhoretz isn't a fire warden at Commentary. If the place ever went ablaze, he'd be showing off the George Costanza leadership model: