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Keystone Pops

Keystone Pops

It's said that there's no fool like an old fool -- usually in the context of flirtation with a younger woman, not contemplation of domestic terrorism. That saying is turned on its graying head by the case of four retirement-age men in Georgia whom federal prosecutors say were engaged in the latter.

The case could provide the script for an absurd movie -- if it weren't borrowed from a paranoid book by Mike Vanderboegh, a former "militia" leader and sometime Fox News commentator. The novel Absolved was meant as a cautionary tale, but the author admits it "amounts to a combination field manual, technical manual, and call to arms for my beloved gunnies of the armed citizenry."

At a local Waffle House, not famous for being a den of intrigue, some of the faithful may have heard the call. Frederick Thomas, 73; Dan Roberts, 67; Ray Adams, 65, and Samuel Crump, 68, are charged with plotting mayhem. They are in jail awaiting a bail hearing next week.

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Mr. Thomas and Mr. Roberts are charged with conspiring to buy an explosive device and an illegal silencer. Mr. Adams and Mr. Crump are charged with conspiring to make the biological toxin ricin. Some of them cupped their ears to hear the judge when they appeared in federal court this week.

The presumption of innocence applies, maybe more than usual. The government hasn't provided many details. Did this quartet act on their foolish boasts? Was the threat they posed really credible?

As it is, the case sounds like a Keystone Kops -- or Keystone Pops -- affair. Perhaps they were just grumpy old men, full of resentment about a changed America, and boasting about what they'll do. It happens all the time, although not usually in front of a federal informant.

Whether this is a case of reckless free speech or genuine criminality, one verdict can be returned now: Too many Americans imbibe politics the way drunks guzzle hooch.

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Too many of all ages do little more than sit around being bitter. And too many bloggers and commentators live to encourage them.

First Published November 5, 2011, 4:00 a.m.

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