There is, for example, Charles Krauthammer's classic column on Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood. Krauthammer is a former practicing psychologist -- he's also a former practicing liberal -- and he used his considerable skill to argue that because he did not think Hasan was crazy, to call him crazy was dastardly political correctness. The correct diagnosis, according to Krauthammer, was that Hasan was a Muslim. He was driven to kill by Extremist Islamic rhetoric. He had, after all, e-mailed Anwar al-Awlaki, who sympathizes with al-Qaeda. He had even said frankly nutty things to his colleagues about nonbelievers having hot oil poured down their throats.

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Fort Hood, the country's largest Army post, was the scene of a tragedy on Thursday, a mass shooting. Details are still a little fuzzy as reports come in, but the Army says 12 people have been killed and another 31 were wounded.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, appeared on MSNBC to discuss the incident, with information she'd received from a general on the post. According to Hutchison, the shooting took place at the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Processing Center. Typically, this is a facility where military officials go through a final check on the preparedness of soldiers deploying for war -- confirming everything from whether the troops have completed their training to whether they've gotten the proper vaccinations. It's also the first screening point for soldiers returning from theater, and the first time they are asked questions about the potentially serious mental consequences of combat. Hutchison said that in this case the center was "processing soldiers to go to Iraq and Afghanistan."

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