When Ronald Reagan was elected president in late 1980, the Iranian terrorists holding U.S. diplomats hostage for more than a year didn't wait around for him to take office before releasing the hostages. They knew who he was, what he would do to them, and they didn't want to deal with him.

We see a splendid echo of this dynamic in Indonesia this morning with the arrest of brazen terrorist mullah Abu Bakar Bashir, who masterminded the horrific Bali nightclub bombings that killed 200 exactly two years ago. Bashir's been walking the streets of Jakarta unmolested, inspiring other terrorists, while Indonesia's pathetic government has hemmed and hawed, handwringing away about 'proof,' without busting him, while at the same time kowtowing to powerful local Islamofascist lobbies.

This ineffectual technicality—obsessed government that lets known terrorist ringleaders walk free was thrown out by Indonesia's angry voters last month. The new president to be inaugurated Oct. 20 is Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former general and security minister, who ran on an electoral platform of smashing terrorism. Indonesians know what terrorism does — chases tourists, foreign investors and international respect right out of their country. That's why they horsed up Bambang. Indonesia's namby—pamby existing government, knowing a new sheriff is coming to clean up Dodge City (a city Jakarta is often compared to) decided to do a little preeemptive cleaning of their own before he moseys on in and cleans out more than just Abu Bakar Bashir.   
 
—A.M. Mora y Leon  10 16 04