Why Pam Geller's Muslim-baiting stunt in Garland was a big fat flop

It is unseemly to speak ill of the dead, but Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi were useful idiots.

The two men — who drove to Garland, Texas, from their apartment in Phoenix to shoot up a contest where the $10,000 prize went to a cartoonist deemed to have drawn the best mocking picture of Islam's Prophet Mohammed — were the only Muslims who rose to the provocation of Pamela Geller and her organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative.

Geller is trumpeting Sunday's foiled attack as a victory for herself, and "truth and freedom." It was neither. It was a victory for the Garland police force, and especially for the unidentified traffic cop who heroically shot dead two heavily armed, well-armored gunmen with a .45