So it took a rookie police officer to accidentally do what federal agents couldn’t in the five years Eric Robert Rudolph scampered the countryside.

Rudolph, a 36-year-old former solider and survivalist, is accused of the July 27, 1996 bombing at Atlanta’s downtown Olympic Park and a 1998 bombing at an abortion clinic in Birmingham. He’s also accused of bombing an Atlanta gay nightclub and an office building that contained an abortion clinic, both in 1997.

If Rudolph is proven guilty, he’ll become the perfect poster boy for the kind of pathetic, simple-minded idiots in the world who use violence to voice their opinions.

It’s one thing to hate gays or to believe abortion is against God’s will, but it’s quite another to try and take the lives of those who disagree with you. Unfortunately, there are many more people out there who think just like him. Thank goodness, many of them were apprehended sooner than Rudolph was.

In a world where respectful dialogue often turns into shouting, then into physical violence, we can only applaud when the worst offenders are captured &045;&045; regardless of the length of time it took to do so.

Rudoph faces six federal counts of using an explosive against a facility in interstate commerce, charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty.

If convicted, Rudolph deserves nothing less then life in prison. That also goes for all others who’ve killed when somebody else’s opinions got in their way.