Debra Saunders on the New York Times and Jose Padilla: Here’s an excerpt from her piece in the San Francisco Chronicle (thanks to How Appealing for the pointer):

[H]ere’s the paragraph in the story by [New York Times] reporter Deborah Sontag that truly baffles me: Padilla’s “journey covered significant territory, geographically, emotionally and spiritually, and family and friends paint a vivid picture of Jose Padilla. If he lived a double life, they were unaware of it. And the American government has said so little beyond its initial, startling allegations about Mr. Padilla that it is difficult to reconcile the two portrayals — the man his relatives thought they knew and the man the government calls an enemy of his homeland.”

What’s difficult to reconcile? Where is the good Jose Padilla that is supposed to balance the bad? When he was young, Padilla was a thug [committing a brutal armed robbery, brandishing a gun in a fit of road rage, and attacking a prison guard]. After he found God as an adult, he was a heel [getting engaged to an Arab woman while he was still married to his American wife, who only learned of the betrothal through a friend]. Whether he’s guilty of plotting to set off a dirty bomb, I don’t know, but Padilla’s biography certainly raises questions that beg for answers. . . .