And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"

... that there is an old saying that a fish out of water starts to rot from the head down.

That occurred to me as a result of all the bad publicity the once sacrosanct Federal Bureau of Investigation is inviting upon itself.

There has been a handful of top FBI officers who have expressed disdain for and dislike of the politics or personality of the duly-elected president, both when he was a candidate and since his election.

That is contrary to the expectation that such high ranking officials, and indeed even local agents, are supposed to keep their personal politics separate from their work activities.

And along comes the recent mass shooting at that school in Florida.

Federal, state and local law officers are fond of saying, “if you see something, say something” about suspicious individuals or activities.

Well, at least two sources in the Florida case saw something, said something to the FBI... and the FBI did nothing.

In the first instance, the FBI was provided with a name. But said that was a dead end because there was no address included.

The shooter spelled his first name Nikolas. His last name is Cruz. I assume the FBI has the latest and best computer equipment. If so, why no search? Ordinary citizens using two different search engines came up with: (1) There are only eight others in the United States with that name spelling, or (2) there were a total of 13 individuals with that name.

Checking those few individuals should not be a chore for the FBI.

In the second case, they had the name and the address. The tip was called in to the FBI tip line. And died there. It was never supplied to the closest actual FBI agents.

Why we can’t trust news.

Reporter says, “the shots came, one after another.” How else could they come?

Reporter says, “the victim fell between 70 and 100 feet and was injured.” You think?

Robot voice on the radio weather channel predicting the weather for Feb. 19 calls it George Washington’s birthday. His birthday is Feb. 22, and that Monday holiday is now called President’s Day, because we can’t single out any president for honors.

Same voice says the weather will be different “south of United States.” Apparently nobody programmed it to know that meant U.S. Hwy. 51.

Sloppy thinking is rampant, whether it is the leadership of the FBI or the robots.

P.S. Spell check just gave me two more popular spellings for the shooter’s first name.