Watching Meet the Press for 4-22-07, I was mildly reassured that the Bush administration and Virginia's Kaine administration are starting to take reasonable first steps toward unraveling the mystery behind Seung-hui Cho's killing spree at Virginia Tech. Although I still believe MSNBC should not have aired Cho's videos, MTP will insure that I return to watching MSNBC one day a week. Some heartening news and choice quotes from the roundtable discussions:

1. VT President Dr. Charles Steger: Well, I think one, we, we need to examine the issue of the balance between the rights of the individual and those of collective society. I certainly hope, and I’m sure that the investigations that are under way, will give us a much more detail as to how this case was handled. But it is something that I think we should reflect upon very carefully and see what we can learn to ensure that this sort of tragic event doesn’t happen on another campus.

2. COL. GERALD MASSENGILL: Tim, I have been given that awesome responsibility, and we’re going to do what, what I would call a comprehensive case study of this entire event. We’re going to learn as much as we can about the shooter. We’re going to learn as much as we can about both incidents. And when we get all the, the information is out there, the accurate information, we’re going to ask the tough questions. I know that, in, in public safety, you only have one chance to get it right. And in this case, we’ll, we’ll learn what the circumstances were that the, the officials used to make that decision. And I, I would say to you that, at least from, from my perspective, the first decision—it’s been asked a lot, they locked down in August, why didn’t they now? Certainly, just from a commonsense perspective, you had a gunman in August that was running toward this campus, had already shot two police officers. In this particular instance, they thought, based on information we have now, that the shooter had left the campus. So I’m not going to make any—I’m not going to have any preconceived notions going into this, but we’re certainly going to take a tough look.

3. FMR. GOV. TOM RIDGE (R-PA): I don’t think, as the—under the leadership of the colonel at the direction of the governor, we’ve given a broad mandate, and I think what is very, very clear, this very unique situation surrounds a severely disturbed young man who’s very, very ill, who seemed to have access at the time, seemed to have lawful access to firearms in an environment that is one of the most open and cherished in America, a college and university campus. So there’s, there’s a range of issues that we’re going to have to look at, facts we’re going to have to look at, assumptions that were made, conclusions that were, were drawn. And it’s a, it’s a national tragedy, and, at the end of the day, I think, out of this tragedy, there may be lessons learned that have a national application. Tim, we’ve got over 4200 great colleges and universities in this country. We got 17 million men and women going to school. And maybe, out of this tragedy, we can reduce the risk that this could ever happen again.

4. FMR. GOV. RIDGE: Yeah. You know, Tim, it’s interesting. We’ve had many discussions before about the gap between law enforcement and intelligence prior to 9/11. There does appear to be a, a wall between mental health professionals. Look, it—this was designed—the laws go back as far as the, the ‘70s to protect an individual’s right to privacy, and mental health. And unfortunately, this tragedy points out that, that we got to re-examine that nexus between that—the right of that private individual who will seek treatment and need treatment. And, by the way, over the past 10 years, with the development of, of neuroscience and the way we can treat young people with mental health illnesses, there’re probably more on the campuses than ever before, so we have to figure out a way that we can still protect the privacy and administer to the health needs of the student and, at the same, time make sure that when you have that aberrant behavior that we saw on the Virginia Tech campus reflected in many, many actions even before this tragedy, that somebody can intervene and help.

5. MR. JON MEACHAM: No, and I think you saw what the Democrats—there was a lot of kind of deafening silence, in a way, on the gun issue most of the week. You know that in 1994 the Republican blowout was to some extent, and in some quarters, blamed on the crime bill, on President Clinton’s anti-crime legislation. I know that people close to the Gores blame the loss of Tennessee in 2000, and therefore the loss of the presidency, on the gun issue. And so I think the Democrats are very touchy about this, and the Republicans are, rather predictably at this point, playing, playing to the base. It’s an inevitable conversation that comes up after one of these horrible things. We have a piece in Newsweek this week by Mike Bloomberg, who is, argues, “Let’s enforce what’s on the books. Let’s crack down on illegal guns.� And I think you’ll see more of that moderate Bloomberg-Schwarzenegger wing of politics taking the lead on this.

6. MS. DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: You know, it seems to me, though, that the Democrats are misreading history when they blame the 2000 election on gun control strength, and when they blame 1994--it’s true that some people claim that, but there were a lot of other reasons why the Democrats lost in ‘94, a lot of other reasons why Gore lost in 2000. We make a narrative sometimes that’s based on something too simple. Also, the Democrats want those mountain states where they had hunters who won.

But on the other hand, there’s an even deeper threat in the country today which is the desire for the country to overcome polarization. And I think the first Democratic candidate who can speak on both sides of this issue empathetically, understanding that freedom desire that’s been part of our Second Amendment from the beginning, but the need for security on the other side, and figure out how to—I think you’re right (points to Jon Meacham), a moderate approach. They can’t just be silent about this, this has been one of their issues. They’ve got to take some sort of leadership.

7. MR. PETE WILLIAMS: Well, I think the first thing that comes through is that this was obviously a very disturbed young man. He—I think that’s thing one. Thing two is, you know, people sometimes say, “Well, he just snapped.� This is clearly not a person who just snapped. He started buying his first weapon in February. He bought the next one in March. He was practicing at a firing range near the campus. And you clearly see a lifetime of rage, resentment. And, and the other thing that comes through is he specifically refers to the two students who shot their fellow classmates at Columbine. I understand now why the profilers said that he reminded them so much of, of them. He’s someone who felt picked on, abused. It was him against the world.

8. MS. GOODWIN: You know, I think the thing that’s not been talked about enough is that it’s also a military preparatory school. I mean, I spoke to thousands of cadets down there, and there’s such a proud tradition in that school, beyond the liberal arts part of the school, of having sent more people who actually go into the Army or the Navy or the Marines, percentagewise, than a lot of the other academies. More Medal of Honor winners there, except for the two major academies. And there’s a sense in which there’s a sense of service in that school, which is why I think when they pulled together in the end in that extraordinary memorial that they were able to do, they really do have a sense of camaraderie. Somebody had mentioned that they were surprised that they got an e-mail from somebody in Iraq who was writing to one of the kids saying, “How—is everything all right there?� What was he doing being upset about this when he was in worse situation? Well, he was probably a student from there who had gone to Iraq, and they know that service to the country. It was a great place.

I bring up #8 because of a Talking Dog post. He talks about Cho's sister and her Iraq job. It's the Columbine thesis, about the relationship between the military-industrial complex and American society. If anything else, Cho at Virginia Tech keeps it alive.

It was also mentioned that Virginia state law and federal law are in conflict about the right of mental defectives to purchase guns.

Charles Krauthammer redeems himself from the previous WaPo editorial, as Pundit Review highlights.

Finally, tops on the asshat list is this offense to God, from Dinesh D'Souza.

I also have to note, that although I'm heartened by the direction this debate took and the news it offered, the Bush administration officials didn't reassure me in any way. Both seemed the epitome of impotence and irrelevance, and the HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt left me with the strong impression, that he didn't want to do anything. Coming from a Bush administration that has botched about every policy initiative it has raised and managed to increase suffering in every disaster, I don't even know why cabinet officials were even invited. I hope they learned something.