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The Ballad of Tractor ManA terrorist who frightened no one.

By Timothy Noah
Posted Wednesday, March 19, 2003, at 1:43 PM ET
Tractor Man, making a point with his John Deere

The first terrorist incident of Gulf War II lasted 48 hours in the nation's capital and hardly anybody seemed to care. Chatterbox is referring to Dwight W. Watson, a North Carolina farmer who drove his tractor during lunchtime Monday into a shallow pond on the Mall. Watson, aka "Tractor Man," said he had ammonium nitrate, a powerful explosive, and he was in a tense standoff with the police until lunchtime today, when he surrendered peacefully. Several buildings along the Mall were evacuated, including the Federal Reserve, which happens to be the most powerful government economic agency on the planet. Yet the story took two days to make Page One of the Washington Post, and when it finally landed there today, it was way down at the bottom. Chatterbox didn't hear about Tractor Man until a neighbor mentioned the incident last night.

Chatterbox can well imagine Tractor Man's high expectations in taking the Mall hostage. A similar incident two decades ago, in which a man threatened to blow up the Washington Monument, was immediately splashed across the Post's front page. It was even featured on Nightline, occasioning the first network news appearance of George Stephanopoulos, then an obscure congressional aide. A media star was born. (Things worked out less favorably for the perpetrator, who was shot and killed by a police sniper.)

This time, though, press coverage was not nearly so sensational. Chatterbox doesn't fault the Post (or the New York Times, which buried the story inside the "A" section) for downplaying Tractor Man. The fault lay with Tractor Man himself. The man's lack of media savvy was almost as criminal as his threat of violence. His menacing behavior had little effect on the Fed, whose Open Market Committee managed to meet yesterday and make the weighty decision not to lower interest rates. It didn't seem to dent D.C.'s spring tourist season, either. Tractor Man's major impact was to snarl commuter traffic from Virginia for a couple of days.

Tractor Man's main impediment, of course, was the war. With the most ambitious U.S. military action in decades about to commence, he couldn't have picked a worse time to try to focus the country's attention on his chosen cause, which was to protest the federal government's tobacco farming policies. If his aim was to spotlight that cause, he couldn't have chosen a less popular or meritorious one than the injustice of lowering tobacco price supports and attempting to keep cigarettes away from minors. If, on the other hand, Tractor Man just wanted to kill people, he'd have done better to stay in North Carolina and continue farming tobacco. The cops couldn't have laid a finger on him.

[Update, March 20: It's back to the Post Metro section for Tractor Man today. It turns out he was bluffing. The cops found a phony hand grenade but no explosives.]

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
Photograph of Dwight Watson by Alex Wong/Getty Images.
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Remarks From The Fray:

In earlier versions of the Washington Post online, he was simultaneously protesting the loss of subsidies, the tobacco settlements and the war. As a Vet, taking up his spot within view of the Wall, and effectively threatening to blow up himself and the Wall with all those explosives, this was a more complex statement than just the tobacco biz.

-- omnibus1reader

(To reply, click here.)

Here's my read of what's going on. This story has been getting no attention not because no one cares. This story has been getting no attention because the media is not covering it. The media know it's been going on but for some very good reason, they're not covering it. They're not covering it because they've BEEN TOLD TO BACK OFF and bury it. Instead, they're busy swinging into their "support the President - support the troops" mode. It has been pointed out to them - accurately I might add - that telling the story will badly embarrass the White House - at a time when it's credibility is being widely questioned.

This disgruntled North Carolina farmer apparently drove his tractor and a load of ammonium nitrate from North Carolina, all the way to Washington D.C., through the city, onto the mall (within what, 1/2 mile of the White House?) and NO ONE STOPPED HIM ??? No one questioned him??? No one thought this was a little odd?? No cop? No highway patrolman? No National Guardsman? No soldier? No alert citizen? And all this happened under an ORANGE ALERT ????

I think the reason we're not hearing anything about it is because the President and Tom Ridge and his Homeland Security people are SO INCREDIBLY EMBARRASSED this happened that they've ordered the press to bury the story. I know! I know! In the US the government doesn't tell the media what it can or can't cover and it sure as hell doesn't order the media to cover or NOT cover any given story. At least it never used to. Maybe that's another change the White House is making.

-- BruceK

(To reply, click here.)

Until 9-11, the most successful terrorists in America were the White Guys in Pick-ups*. These were the guys who joined militias, set up their own religious camps, and holed-up on Montana shacks. They were Klan members and Birchers, they blew up clinics and shot presidents. They hated our government with a white hot passion, and they were prepared to do something about it. And they never, ever got the kind of respect that the guys from the Middle East got. They were never profiled. They were never villains in blockbuster summer hits.

I guess Tractor Guy decided to kick it up a notch. He traded the pick-up for the tractor, and it still didn't help. These guys just can't get any respect.

*Yes, yes. I, myself, know lovely, intelligent, peaceful white men who drive pick-up trucks. I am sure they are the majority of pick-up drivers, so Dodge and Ford can leave me alone. I also know some lovely, intelligent, peaceful Middle Easterners.

-- DeaH

(To reply, click here.)

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