Keller @ Large: Pandering To Panic?

BOSTON (CBS) - It's a familiar cycle.

A frightening event occurs overseas – an outbreak of disease perhaps, like SARS or Ebola, or a terrorist act – and suddenly anyone from the country involved is suspect, their entry into our country viewed with suspicion or, in some cases, anger.

The number of governors calling on the feds to back off their plan to accept thousands of refugees from the Syrian civil war was up to 25 Tuesday in the wake of reports that one or more of the Paris murderers was part of that migration.

And the skeptics aren't the only ones playing familiar roles.

At least one newspaper editorial I saw suggested the demand for clarity on the refugee screening process to avoid letting in any bad guys was "knee-jerk" partisan Republican "grandstanding." But that theory held up for just a few minutes, until Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire took the same position.

And while there's no question many if not all of these governors are responding as much to the immediate public reaction and its political implications as to the facts about who the refugees are and how they'll be screened, it is also true that government vetting is an imperfect science. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was given a "thorough" screening by the FBI in 2011 after the Russians raised a flag about him.

Extreme reactions based on emotion and fear rather than facts are never a good idea. If we want our allies to lead the war on Daesh or ISIS, the least we can do is help them deal with the Syrian refugee crisis.

But reasonable caution to prevent infiltration by violent radicals is not an out-of-line request.

We'll be much better off in the long run if both sides of this one kept their knee-jerking in check.

Listen to Jon's commentary: