The Bush Derangement Syndrome story of the evening: Maine lawyer arrested after dressing as bin Laden. (Hat tip: Bill Amos.)

BOSTON (Reuters) - A Maine attorney who released information in 2000 about President George W. Bush’s drunken driving conviction was arrested on Tuesday after he dressed up as al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and waved a fake gun at traffic.

Police in South Portland, Maine, arrested Thomas Connolly, 49, of Scarborough, Maine, and charged him with criminal threatening. He was released on bail, local officials said.

Lt. Todd Bernard said the police department received calls about a man wearing Middle Eastern garb and a bin Laden mask and carrying fake dynamite standing along an interstate highway. When police arrived, they saw Connolly holding a gun.

“They ordered him to drop the weapon several times and he eventually complied,” Bernard said. It turned out the gun was fake, Bernard said.

In a phone interview, Connolly said he’d been trying to protest a planned change in local tax rules. “I didn’t expect to be arrested,” he said. “Obviously I touched a post-9/11 nerve.”

Days before the 2000 presidential election, Connolly released information about Bush’s 1976 drunken driving conviction.