ONE LAST THOUGHT ON DENNIS RADER

"My remorse, I think -- I think it's there," the admitted serial killer said in court this week, in a rambling statement that should be required watching (and reading) for anyone who believes Rader is a monster from Hell.

The things he did to men, women, children? Horrible.

Does that make him a monster? No.

Any illusions of Rader being a force of evil vanished for us when we heard the killer's statement to the court.

This wasn't the same Rader who earlier this year admitted -- with arch pleasure -- the crimes that terrorized Wichita over three decades. That guy seemed sinister; his half-shaved eyebrows added to the impression.

But the Rader who babbled for almost a half-hour on Thursday was a shell, all husked out with no place to go but down the memory hole. He compared himself to his victims and thanked people like he had just won an Oscar. The half-shaved eyebrows looked ridiculous, not menacing.

The Wichita Eagle has posted the transcripts from this week's sentencing hearing. From Rader's statement, these words:

"And I think honesty, people will say I'm not a Christian, but I believe I am. So anyway, I faced up to the man himself now, my boss. I think that all points to accountability and full responsibility now ...

"Now that I've confessed, put myself out to let everybody know what's going on, I expect to be healed and have life, and hopefully someday God will accept me.

"I think Sedgwick County, myself, we speak of a man as an evil man. A dark side is there, but now I think light is beginning to shine."

The ramblings of a dangerous lunatic, signifying nothing.