Take Us to Fuschia Alert, Mr. Ridge

May 22, 2002

Both Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd have excellent columns in today's Times about the Bush Administration's campaign to scare Americans into unquestioning loyalty towards the Administration: Cool It! and Color Them Fatalistic. Perhaps we need to use just a little common sense:

The F.B.I. has warned apartment managers in New York that the evildoers might try to get a place, furnish it with explosives and blow up the building.

But first the Qaeda rats would have to find an empty, affordable apartment. Then they'd have to get past the withering front line of real estate agents. Finally, they'd have to penetrate the maximum security defenses of Manhattan co-op boards.