Last Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that authorities had “no evidence” that the failed bombing in Times Square which occurred the day before was “anything other than a one-off” incident. However, she also said “[w]e are treating it as if it could be a potential terrorist attack. The derivation of that we do not know and that’s what the investigation will tell us.”

Looking for a line of attack on the Obama administration, the Republicans and other right wingers latched onto Napolitano’s “one-off” comments, claiming they indicate that she and the administration don’t understand the true nature of the threat:

– House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH): “The Obama administration has spoon-fed the American people with bland reassurances that this was just one off, or that this was just a lone wolf. This is the rhetoric of an administration that continues to operate without a real comprehensive plan to confront the terrorist threat.”

– RNC Chair Micheal Steele: “Clearly there’s something missing…I think there’s a lot of rush to judgment in concluding that he acted alone so we can sweep that aside and not have it reach out as tentacles often do and touch a whole lot of other actors around the globe, particularly those who are apart of the global jihad.” [MSNBC, 5/7/10]

– Charles Krauthammer: “The administration always instinctively wants to pretend, at least at the beginning, that it’s a one-off the thing…They don’t want to talk about the overall structure, which is that it’s part of jihad. They’re all connected in the sense that they are adherents to a jihadist movement with a lot of tentacles and that is what is behind them.”

Napolitano never claimed outright that the suspect, Faisal Shahzad, acted alone. She simply said there was “no evidence” yet that he didn’t. Now, it appears her informed judgment has been further vindicated. Gen. David Petraeus — a favorite among right wing neoconservatives and war hawks — said today that Shahzad did, in fact, act alone:

Gen. David Petraeus says the Times Square bombing suspect is a “lone wolf” terrorist who did not work with others.

The general who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan tells The Associated Press that alleged bomber Faisal Shahzad was inspired by militants in Pakistan, but didn’t have direct contact with them.

The Washington Post reports today that “U.S. officials” said Shahzad’s “radicalization was cumulative and largely self-contained — meaning that it did not involve typical catalysts such as direct contact with a radical cleric, a visible conversion to militant Islam or a significant setback in life.”

So while Boehner, Steele, Krauthammer and the rest were busy jumping to conclusions on the Times Square bombing, the Obama administration offered a more reasoned and measured response. Perhaps the right wing will now attack Petraeus’s naïveté in fighting terrorism?

In apparent need to live up to his reputation as critic-in-chief and find fault with the Obama administration about something, anything, Charles Krauthammer acknowledges the excellent work done by authorities in tracking, apprehending, and interrogating alleged attempted Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, but then asks us to imagine… something different. What then?

But what if Faisal Shahzad, the confessed Times Square bomber, had stopped talking? When you tell someone he has the right to remain silent, there is a distinct possibility that he will remain silent, is there not? And then what?

The authorities deserve full credit for capturing Shahzad within 54 hours. Credit is also due them for obtaining information from him by invoking the “public safety” exception to the Miranda rule.

But then Shahzad was Mirandized. If he had decided to shut up, it would have denied us valuable information — everything he is presumably telling us now about Pakistani contacts, training, plans for other possible plots beyond the Times Square attack.

I hate to break this to Charles, but Shahzad could have “decided to shut up” whether or not he received his Miranda warning. It’s amazing how many conservatives seem to be under the impression that “Mirandizing” a suspect somehow grants them special super powers of silence, rather than simply informing them of rights they already have. The truth is that Shahzad could have stopped talking whenever he wanted, regardless of whether he was Mirandized. (What would Krauthammer suggest in that case? Well, given his past statements, probably “torture him.”) As it happens, apparently, Shahzad cooperated, and according to reports he’s been giving up good information. But so committed is Krauthammer to a militaristic approach that he’s got to spin out alternative scenarios where the Obama administration’s silly commitment the the rule of law led to a bad outcome.

This is just the latest instance of “national security” conservatives embarrassing themselves when forced to discuss national security in anything but the most general terms. We saw this repeatedly from Sen. John McCain during his presidential campaign. Another, more recent example is Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the foremost proponents of a “war on terror,” whose opposition to civilian trials for terrorists is founded, as Spencer Ackerman reported, on an “urban myth” that military trials can better protect secret information than civilian trials can.

What unites all of these conservatives is a religious commitment to the idea that terrorism is a problem best handled as a military problem, a belief that resists all evidence that such an approach generates more terrorism than it eliminates, and ignores the numerous successes that the U.S. has had in confronting terrorism as a law enforcement problem, and terrorists as criminals.

Over the past few weeks, right-wing proponents of Arizona’s draconian immigration law — ranging from senatorial candidates Marco Rubio (R-FL) and J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) to Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and lawyer Kris Kobach –have attempted to suggest that the majority of Latinos in the state support its implementation.

Watch a compilation of their remarks:

Suggesting that most Latinos support a law that will likely exacerbate racial profiling and civil rights abuses doesn’t just fly in the face of the very visible Latino-led backlash against SB-1070, it’s also factually incorrect. This morning, the nation’s largest Spanish-language newspaper , La Opinion, reported that 70 percent of Arizona Latinos “strongly oppose” SB-1070 and 11 percent “somewhat oppose” it. The study, conducted by Arizona State University, showed that only 12 percent of Arizona’s Latinos strongly support the law. Opposition to the law also isn’t limited to recent Latino immigrants who are potentially unable to vote. Approximately 82-67 percent of second, third, and fourth generation Latinos also oppose SB-1070:

It’s unclear where proponents of SB-1070 got the idea that most Arizona Latinos support their effort. A Rasmussen poll released on April 21 showed that 70 percent of all Arizonans support legislation that would let police stop and check the status of suspected undocumented immigrants. Rasmussen didn’t isolate its data to Latinos, and it appears many just assumed that the 63 percent who opposed the bill and racially identified themselves as “other” must correspond to the Latino population.

Arizona state Sen. Russell Pierce (R) took an even bigger leap and assumed that since 60 percent of Latinos supported other anti-immigrant ballot initiatives of his in 2006, that must mean that they support SB-1070 — a much harsher measure — four years later.

On the national level, polls show that an overwhelming majority Latinos across the nation support comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level. Eighty-seven percent of Latino respondents said they would not consider voting for a Congressional candidate who was in favor of forcing most of the undocumented population to leave the country. A new poll released this week also reveals that the percentage of all Arizonans who support SB-1070 has fallen from 70 percent to 52 percent.