During the big antiwar demonstration and also during the First Lady’s appearance at the National Book Fair, sensors on the Mall picked up traces of tularemia, a deadly bacterial disease that has been weaponized. Choose your paranoia: was Big Brother trying to kill the antiwar demonstrators? Was Osama trying to whack Mrs. Bush? Who knows. But what happened then? They didn’t tell anyone.

Whether or not the sensors picked up a false positive (apparently this is likely), I can’t believe that it takes 72 hours to pick up the phone and ask the CDC to check it out.