Two months ago, we told you about the attempt of a would-be bomber to plant an improvised explosive device on the route of an annual Martin Luther King Day parade in Spokane, Wash.
Dozens, possibly hundreds, of people owe their lives to the quick thinking of three city workers who alerted authorities about the backpack containing a time bomb that was sophisticated enough to cause massive damage, according to the FBI.
You may be happy to know that the police have apprehended a suspect in that mass murder attempt and charged him with trying to use a weapon of mass destruction and possession of an IED.
But the arrest opens up a new avenue of questions.
Kevin William Harpham (pictured), 36, could face life imprisonment if found guilty of the charges. Authorities say the former army soldier has had ties to local neo-Nazi groups, including the National Alliance, although that group says he is not a member.
As we've said before, the attempt at killing innocent people at the parade, which was a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy on human rights, was a failure. The bomb did not go off, and the people who wanted to remember Dr. King's works were able to do so, uninterrupted. That's the good news.
But there's bad news too.
We don't know much about how this was done, how the alleged would-be bomber got the material, if he was alone or if he had help. If he had help, he did this with a network of planners who were dead-set on creating a tragedy.
What's most disturbing is that this kind of homicidal insanity lurks right in our midst and nothing is done about it. If you'll remember, there was James Von Brunn, a deranged 89-year-old man with a long, violent and racist past, who walked in to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and shot security guard Tyrone Johns before he was shot and wounded himself. Months later, he died before he could stand trial.
Both Von Brunn and Harpham openly subscribed to racial hatred and made that plain on Websites they posted to. One day, Von Brunn and allegedly Harpham got the gumption to act out their wishes.
Here's the most disturbing part (which is more disturbing than these two and people like them): They are not being watched.
On Thursday, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) held hearings in Congress on the possible radicalization of young people in America's Muslim community. He said he is interested in finding out who may be potential terrorists and to find out why Muslims are not more active in turning potential terrorists in (for the record, one in five post-9/11 terror investigations began from tips within the Muslim community).
So if King is so interested in rooting out terrorist elements among Muslims, why is he not interested in rooting them out everywhere? The Spokane bomb had all the elements of another Oklahoma City bombing, which had nothing to do with radical Islamists but, rather, a run-of-the-mill American boy who was determined to kill as many as he could.
That was the same intent of Von Brunn and the same attempt in Spokane, but I'm waiting to hear this from King and everyone else who claims to have an interest in ridding the nation of terrorist elements.
The number of hate groups has increased exponentially since Barack Obama was elected president.
These types of people travel freely throughout the country, and believe me, they don't all have shaved heads and wear swastika tattoos but, rather, business suits and preppy sweaters in many cases. Still, where are the Congressional hearings to find fringe elements in the mainstream?
It's a sigh of relief to know there is an arrest in the thwarted Spokane bomb attack, but we should all be uneasy to know that our lawmakers see fit to ignore that and focus on people who haven't done anything wrong.