With Donald Trump's rise to the top of the Republican presidential ticket, conservatives find themselves in an awkward position. For months, most of us could not conceive of a Trump candidacy as anything more than a flash-in-the-pan publicity stunt designed to produce ratings. Others believed the GOP's conservative "establishment" too entrenched to allow an inexperienced, undisciplined insurgent with a dangerous streak of self-indulgence to have any reasonable shot at the White House.
The FBI had the Orlando gunman under watch — twice — and, after much consideration, decided to stop following him. Was this a mistake? Obviously, tragically so.
But in this massive lost opportunity to prevent a slaughter dwells a positive sign for our ability to stop future attacks. Law enforcement at least had its eye on him. Scarier would have been that it had never heard of Omar Mateen.
