Steve Coll's bottom line:
Whatever the narrative behind Shahzad’s case turns out to be, we can take solace that we will hear it in a court of law. Amidst the country’s often self-defeating search for a justice system to address terrorism, his is not a particularly hard casea U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil for a crime against Americans carried out in New York. We can nonetheless look forward to “The Daily Show” clips showing cable television anchors railing about the Obama Administration’s failure to recognize him as a warrior. Fortunately, like one of those Eleven O’clock News bank robbers who tries to rob an A.T.M., only to topple it over on himself, Shahzad’s case may help to illuminate a truth larger than himself: Terrorists are criminals, and the great majority of criminals are prosaic.