You remember the anthrax attacks – or do you? It often seems, to me at least, that this important catalyst for the invasion of Iraq and our supremely wrong-headed post-9/11 foreign policy has been flushed down the collective memory hole.

For all the attention that's been paid to that spooky chapter in the history of the "war on terrorism" in the intervening years, it may as well have never occurred.

That's why news of the former prime suspect's ultimate vindication – and his victory in a $5.8 million lawsuit in which he accused the feds of unfairly targeting him as a "person of interest" (as John Ashcroft put it) – seems like a visitation from another time, the ghost of 9/11 past, haunting and mocking us. It sends chills down my spine – because, you see, the real culprits are still out there.

The FBI's non-investigation of this heinous and sinister crime was a joke from the beginning: after all, since when do FBI probes have official names, and why such a silly one as "Amerithrax"?

Such brazen corniness has about it an unmistakable Keystone Kops air, which was certainly evident throughout the long-playing media circus that will evermore be known as the persecution of Steven J. Hatfill.

Who Planned the Anthrax Attacks?