Monday June 23, 2003

"PRETEND YOU LIVE IN AMERICA." Jimmy Breslin's always worth reading, seldom more so than in this column, in which the old guy looks at the Iyman Faris case and, not being properly coached in the new realities, calls it for what it is:

Friday, the newspapers and television reported the following matter with no anger or effort to do anything other than serve as stenographers for the government:

On March 1, give or take a day, in Columbus, Ohio, the FBI arrested an American citizen they say is Iyman Faris. There wasn't a word uttered. He vanished. No lawyer was notified. He made no phone calls and wrote no postcards or letters.

He was a United States citizen who disappeared without a trace into a secret metal world...

They held him secretly in an iron world for the next six weeks. This is plenty of time to hand out giant beatings. Oh, yes, don't gasp. If cops are performing a Fascist act, then always suspect them of acting like Fascists. They have fun beating people up.

In mid-April, again in deep secrecy, the government says Faris was allowed to plead guilty to plotting to pull down or blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. He was in a sealed Virginia federal courtroom. If he had a lawyer, that was some lawyer.

After that, he was sentenced. We don't know what the sentence was because it is sealed.

I don't know what Faris looks like or sounds like or what he thinks and what he was doing. He could be the worst. I don't know. Prove he wanted to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge and let him paste a picture of Osama bin Laden on the cell wall for inspiration over the next half a century. But first bring him into open court and try him. Pretend you live in America. Even pick a jury...

Hacks may whinge at the archaism of his style, but Breslin on his worst day wipes the floor with their candy asses every time. And reason isn't too technical. It's because Breslin knows what he sees, and tells us. None of this prevaricating horseshit for him. Things either add up or they don't.

This doesn't add up. And he's right, not enough reporters have said so. When Breslin stops doing this gig, we'll all be a lot closer to mushroom status.