"Let me say something now to the coward that did this: you will be caught and punished. Our justice will be swift and sure."

Thus the police chief, the mayor, the governor, the president. When a brand new monstrous crime emerges into the nightmare that is the daily news, the officials hardly need to screw up their faces and talk: you already know what they're going to say, and how they're going to say it.

This speech is meant to reassure us. Our hyper-competent law enforcement officials are on the case. They will protect us. They will pursue the perpetrator to the ends of the earth. Justice will prevail.

That, no doubt, is why Osama bin Laden is in custody. That's why we've caught whoever was mailing anthrax. And that's why, though he pulls up next to state troopers and kills people with high powered rifles and seeming impunity, the DC sniper will pay. That's why you don't leave notes that say: Dear Mr. Policeman, I am God." Punishment will be sure and swift.

And perhaps it will be. Or perhaps if it's already getting as bit late for swift, it will be sure. Or perhaps not.

If any reassurance is still provided by The Speech, it's fading. Someone, perhaps a management consultant who's read Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People or similar scriptures in the religion of stupidity, has told the authorities that they must appear authoritative.

In fact, they should appear absolutely confident and competent, no matter how they may actually feel. If they can pretend to be confident and competent, this will help them actually to become confident and competent.

I used to work at a home for juvenile delinquents. We couldn't seem to reform them, so we told them to "fake it till you make it": pretend to be a decent human being. Then people will think you really are a decent human being, and you might even mutate into a decent human being eventually.

However, it would not be shocking if such a strategy were to backfire. It is a way of deepening and validating the dishonesty that is part of the problem in the first place. And it's a good way to lose whatever shreds of credibility you may have.

In fact, after a few failures of swift, sure justice, only a few chumps could take such a declaration seriously. And despite the ever-growing size of our law-enforcement bureaucracies, despite their ever-increasing surveillance of the citizenry, despite their ever-increasing technological sophistication, justice is anything but sure and swift. It's spotty and exceedingly slow.

All of us understand this. And all of us should be willing to forgive it: the people who administer justice are, after all, only human, and they have the same vulnerabilities to being imposed upon, and the same basic range of incompetency, as all the rest of us. On the other hand, some criminals are very smart and very elusive.

There's never a guarantee that someone will be caught. That's just the way it is. And so our officials have no business issuing such guarantees.

The more guarantees they issue, the more believability they lose. And the more sure they sound, the more vociferously they assure us that it will all come out alright, the more ridiculous they seem when it doesn't, and the less they will be believed next time around.

It might be nice if we all really were whatever we pretend to be. But we aren't.

Now I'm not suggesting that the police chief appear before the cameras and say justice will be slow and iffy. What I'd suggest is that you apportion your public confidence to the evidence and tell as much of the truth as you can.

So delete "Make no mistake; the monster who did this will pay." Insert something along these lines: "we're trying everything. We're hopeful. We welcome any suggestions."