Slacker Rendell: Nothing I can do about school security

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RUSH: There's an ongoing press conference taking place in Pennsylvania over this tragic shooting at the one-room Amish school. The governor of Pennsylvania, Fast Eddie Rendell, was there, and a very, very curious answer to this question from an unidentified reporter. "Governor Rendell, do you see any need for any changes in state public schools in terms of security?"

RENDELL: You can make all the changes you want, but you can never stop a random act of violence by a person who is intent on killing themselves. It's the same thing as protecting the president of the United States. You can have 50 Secret Service agents there, but if someone is willing to swap their life for the president's, they're going to get a point-blank shot at the president.

RUSH: Wow. (Laughing) As an addendum to this, the movie about the assassination of George W. Bush will open October 27th in various theaters here in the United States of America. Now, what a way to answer the question. Fast Eddie, you going to do anything to ramp up security at the schools? Nah, it won't matter. Somebody wants to come in and wipe out the president, you can't stop 'em. I mean, if they're willing to lose their lives in the process, nothing you can do. Governor Rendell, would you care to weigh in on your thoughts on port security? Well, there's really nothing you can do. If somebody's going to put a nuke in a container coming into ports and they're going to hide in the container with the nuke and set it off the minute that they're discovered, there's nothing much you can do.

Governor Rendell, Fast Eddie Rendell, what can we do here about airline hijackings? We just had another one. Turkish airliner was hijacked and landed in Italy. By the way, we've learned the motive for this now. The motive was the Islamists aboard were trying to make a statement about the pope's words. So Fast Eddie, what can we do about airline hijacking? Well, there's really nothing you can do. You could put 50 air marshals up there, you can put lead all over the cockpit door, but if somebody is willing to die in order to bring down the plane, there's nothing you can do. About the best thing you could do, Fast Eddie would say, is have a drink, you know, get an adult beverage, get a cocktail and say your prayers.

Fast Eddie, what about the prospect of terrorists hitting the electricity grid or maybe poisoning the water supply? Well, there's really not a whole lot you can do if somebody is willing to drink that water immediately after poisoning it and dying. I mean, you could have all the security you want at the ports, you could have all the air marshals up there in the sky, but if somebody's willing to wipe themselves out, there's not a whole lot you can do. Just like if you wanted to kill the president, 50 Secret Service agents couldn't stop it if the guy's willing to get up close, point-blank range, and die himself.

Now, that's gotta make you people in Pennsylvania awfully comfortable, when he gets a question about increasing security at the schools and basically says it won't matter. Is that what he said? He said, "Well, you can make all the changes you want but you can never stop a random act of violence by a person who's intent on killing themselves." Sounds to me like he doesn't think it's possible to stop these random acts of violence. I wonder if that extends to terrorism? Well, you know, you really can't stop these things, Fast Eddie would say. Strange stuff indeed.