Wretchard:

Bai’s article reminds me of one of those products which are described on the packaging as being a new space age, high-technology, portable illumination aid which on closer inspection turns out to be a flashlight. When the newfangled description of terrorism as a “blended threat” is subtracted, the entire program consists of the policies of the late 1990s. Bilateral talks with North Korea. Oslo. G-8. The United Nations. Warrants of arrest. Extradition requests. Not a single new element in the entire package, except the fancy rationale. There is nothing wrong with that, any more than there is anything objectionable about a flashlight, but a more candid characterization of Kerry’s proposals is not a voyage into uncharted waters so much as return to the world of September 10; in Kerry’s words “back to the place we were”.

There is no way with which Kerry’s statement in the New York Times magazine about reducing terrorism to the level of a nuisance can be taken “unfairly out of context,” as the MSM accuses, well, everyone, of doing.

Professor Volokh valiantly tries to clarify by maintaining that the level of terrorism to almost none is the best goal, and that Kerry’s analogies towards prostitution and illegal gambling (which, these days are at such acceptable levels that some law enforcement branches turn a “blind eye” to them) are weak at best, betraying tactical surrender. He concludes:

I realize that quotes in newspaper articles (yes, even in the New York Times) can be taken out of context. Still, this was a pretty long and self-contained quote, which suggests that Kerry was indeed making this analogy, and making it deliberately. And it strikes me as a singularly inapt analogy to make, an analogy that ought to make one question its user’s underlying thinking about the problem.

That the quote is “self-contained” makes further analysis really almost unecessary. At this point in the game it’s a matter of perception, and when Kerry says that certain terrorist attacks would be mere “nuisances” in the future, that word is what will be seared—seared—in the minds of his listeners.