This is going to get ugly

The tragedy at Fort Hood, with the death of 12 soldiers and the wounding of 31 others, would have been bad enough if the gunman was named John Smith.

But I fear that a nation that should focus on what happens when men and women in a voluntary military force are stretched beyond their physical and mental capacities by endless deployments will get lost on a false issue.

I fear we will focus on the fact the alleged shooter is named Nidal Malik Hasan.

Yes, the folks who like to pretend that Barack Hussein Obama is a really a foreign national sent to infiltrate and destroy the American way of life will turn its fury on an Army psychiatrist's religion and ethnicity.

Never mind the fact he is a Virginian who faced the same fears of deployment as many of the men and women he counseled. Forget about the fact he was trained as a soldier and a doctor by the U.S. Army.

None of this is intended to lessen the unspeakable horror of the crimes he is alleged to have committed. What it does amount to is a wish that we focus on the real issues and not on straw men that will be created by those who make hatred a central part of their lives.