Wimpy cowboys? Rico doesn't know any

Gail Collins has another opinion column in The New York Times:

Out of all the problems we have run into in dealing with the giant hairball that is known as the Bush War on Terror, one of the weirdest is the reaction to President Obama’s plan to close down Guantánamo. In the rank of threats to public safety, putting the Guantánamo inmates in maximum-security prisons in the United States has got to come in way behind, say, making it easy for customers to purchase firearms at gun shows. But to hear the howls coming from Congress, you’d think the Obama administration was planning to house the prisoners in suburban preschools. “Terrorists. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you,” warned a Republican web video, which mixed pictures of accused terrorists with road signs in states where the GOP predicted they might be sent. In another production, the occasionally loyal opposition resurrected the infamous Daisy countdown ad to show a little girl picking petals off a flower while the president prepares to close Gitmo.
“To bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come,” snarled Dick Cheney in his “no middle ground” speech. Although really, for the sake of the national mental health, it might be better if we all just ignore the former vice president until he agrees to undergo therapy. Forget I ever mentioned it.
Instead, consider the case of Hardin, Montana, a community of 3,400 people just down the road from the place where Custer made his Last Stand. Lately, things have not been going any better for Hardin than they did for the general. Unemployment is rife. “You go look at our downtown, there’s many closed businesses... you’ll see drunks laying in the street. It’s not a pretty sight,” the head of the town’s economic development authority told National Public Radio. The town built a $27 million, 464-bed prison under the theory that other parts of the state would pay to have Hardin look after their problem residents. But it’s been empty since it was declared open for business nearly two years ago, and the construction loans are in default.
So, with the town council’s enthusiastic support, Hardin volunteered to take the Guantánamo prisoners. It’s unlikely that the White House would have accepted the offer, but it was certainly an example of pluck and you’d think everyone would give Hardin three cheers. Instead, Montana’s Democratic senators went ballistic: “We’re not going to bring al-Qaeda to Big Sky Country— no way, not on my watch,” said Max Baucus. “If these prisoners need a new place, it’s not going to be anywhere near The Last Best Place,” said Jon Tester.
This shows us two things:

1) Montana has given itself many nicknames.
2) Montanans are more easily frightened than Manhattanites.

Think about it. New Yorkers live in the top terror target in the nation. This week four new would-be terrorists were arrested for plotting to blow up synagogues in the Bronx. On the same day, President Obama announced that the first Guantánamo prisoner to be tried in the United States would be coming to court in Lower Manhattan. Even though it appears the guys involved in the Bronx case were deeply, deeply inept, this is still not the kind of news package you want to hear. But nobody had a fit over it. “Bottom line is we have had terrorists housed in New York before,” said Senator Charles Schumer.
New Yorkers aren’t the only ones who have learned to calmly resist both international terrorism and national hysteria. The small town of Florence, Colorado, has a 490-bed high-security facility known as Supermax, which houses 33 terrorists, including Ramzi Yousef, who led the first World Trade Center bombing; the failed shoe-bomber Richard Reid; and Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted of conspiring in the 11 September attacks.
The local residents seem fine with it, possibly because they know the prisoners spend 23 hours a day in their cells, which are made of poured concrete and furnished with concrete tables and bunks.
Nobody escapes from maximum-security prisons. But even if they did, who would you rather have on the lam in your neighborhood— a native of Afghanistan whose history suggests an affinity for jihad? Or a resident of your own state whose history suggests an affinity for breaking into people’s houses, tying them up and torturing them?
The nation, as we all know, is divided into crowded states and empty states, and I was always under the impression that folks in the empty places were particularly brave and self-reliant. Those of us who live in the crowded parts have many good qualities, but we are not necessarily all of pioneer stock, given the critical importance we assign to restaurants that deliver at 2 in the morning.
Who knew we were tougher than Montanans?