The Mayor who cried "Lone-Wolf"?

AP Photo: Jefferson Siegel

I was watching CNN with a friend Sunday evening when they started reporting that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was going to give a live press conference at 7:30 p.m. It was some sort of announcement having to do with terrorism.
I rolled my eyes. If they weren't going live for another hour and a half that meant it wasn't actually that important. But CNN sure did keep reminding everyone to watch.
I thought of the bad press Bloomberg's been getting hammered with since he ordered his cops to remove Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zucotti Park. It hasn't been pretty. While there's plenty of competition out there for the top spot, he's become the poster boy for oppression against the movement.
Of course that made me suspicious. How convenient, I thought, that all of a sudden some terrorist event would happen and steal away all those bad headlines. No more bad press about terrible decision-making, suppression of first amendment rights and needless brutality. The hot glare would be removed.
So, finally we got the news. On Saturday, Bloomberg's crack cop squad busted up a one-man terrorist operation getting ready to blow up a bunch of good New Yorkers and recently returned veterans. The one-man act arrested was Jose Pimental, a 27 year-old Manhattanite born in the Dominican Republic. Bloomberg described him as an "al Qaeda sympathizer." Shazam - a Latino convert to Islam with al Qaeda-ish sympathy! Spooky stuff!
According to the story, Pimental was planning to blow up police cars, post offices and target returning vets. That's where the story got a bit weird for me. What do you get when you blow up police cars? Sympathy for cops. What do you get when you target a post office? Outrage. And targeting returning vets? Is Pimental psychic or something? Did he have some master list of soldiers? My bullshitometer was going off and wouldn't stop.
And for just a moment, people weren't talking about Bloomberg's stupidity and heavy handedness with regard to the OWS movement.
As of this morning, it appears my skepticism was well-founded. Multiple sources are reporting that the FBI declined to take the case when New York City officials offered it to them. According to Tom Hays of the Associated Press, an FBI official said that after reviewing the evidence, the bureau found Pimentel did not have the “predisposition or the ability” to carry out the terror plot.
It sounds like a case of entrapment more than anything. But it sure did change the subject, for a moment, anyway.