This piece right here pretty much sums up my feelings on the whole thing. You can go look at it and not bother to read any further if you want. We're on your nickle here, I'm just a fat old guy with an opinion.
There's no doubt that some folks want the perpetrators to be their favorite boogie man. Others trot out the same names everytime something like this happens. They will breathlessly tell you that this is the same kind of thing Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph have done, failing to mention Ted Kaczynski or Floyd Lee Corkins II. In this particular instance, they note that the 15th was Patriot's Day in Massachusetts and Maine, as well as the day our taxes are due. On that one thin thread of information, they hang a nationwide conspiracy of middle aged tax protestors and Christain Homeschooling soccer moms blowing up the countryside. Some of them are doing this knowing that they have nothing to actually prove anything of the sort but are taking shots at the other side for some future political gain , others will do it to validate their feeling that politics is a battle of Good vs Evil (and they are the Good Guys, so the ones they disagree with are Evil and likley responsible for most Evil acts) rather than a disagreement between people on how to run the country. Others are just plain ignorant or easily led by others.
The ones I feel are nearly as bad as the people who pulled the trigger on those bombs are the ones who know that have no proof, but are laying blame or voicing insinuations in order to further a political agenda. Their goal is to get you to associate any act of terror with those with whom they have a political disagreement so as to affect your vote---even if in the end it turns out not to be true. In my mind, this is nothing other than trying to get you to hate someone based on stereotypes and innuendo, and that's Hate Speech as far as I'm concerned. I also see it as a tacit admission on thier part that they can't win the political argument based on facts and logic and feel they have to rely on Hate to achieve thier goals.
Let's examine the last time a pressure cooker type bomb was found in a crowded city square.
It was May of 2002, and a Nissan Pathfinder was noticed to be smoldering in the middle of Times Square. Subsequent investigation found and disarmed a bomb made from gasoline, propane, firecrackers and simple alarm clocks — also included eight bags of a granular substance, later determined to be nonexplosive grade of fertilizer inside a 55-inch-tall metal gun locker, which was the pressure vessel in this case.
When it was announced that the police were seeking a middle aged white man who had been videotaped at the scene, ans Mayor Bloomberg made an offhand remark on Katie Couric's show
Law enforcement officials don't know who left the Nissan Pathfinder behind, but at this point the Mayor believes the suspect acted alone.
"If I had to guess, twenty five cents, this would be exactly that," Bloomberg said. "Homegrown maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything."
Some folks actually started saying that it would be "irresponsible" not to speculate that the perpetrator was a Glenn Beck fan. While another took the fact that the license plates on the Pathfinder were from Connetticutt and created a Tea Party conspiracy.
It may be that the Pakistan-based Taliban, the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has quietly established a Connecticut franchise while we weren't looking. That's possible. But it seems far more likely to me that the perpetrator of the bungled Times Square bomb plot was either a lone nut job or a member of some squirrely branch of the Tea Party, anti-government far right. Which actually exists in Connecticut, where, it seems, the car's license plates were stolen.This genius went on to further state that it was pretty much silly to think that it could be anyone else.
Sensible analysts of the event piont out, convincingly, that no branch of the Taliban, whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan, has demonstrated either the intention or the capability of striking in such as fashion. (Emphasis mine, SV)
Sensible analysts of the event piont out, convincingly, that no branch of the Taliban, whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan, has demonstrated either the intention or the capability of striking in such as fashion. (Emphasis mine, SV)
And the fact that the suspect, videotaped, is a white male in his 40s, hasn't deterred our vast team of terrorism talking heads from describing the operation as part of the jihad. Of course, it could be that some offshoot of the jihadist movement recruited a white bread American to do its bidding, and it could be that the man shown in the videotape is not the culprit at all. But, as in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, when self-appointed experts blamed Muslims only to find out that it was a Gulf War veteran named Tim who did it, there has once again been an unseemly rush to judgment.
And a respected college professor would state
I think the politics of this incident will turn heavily on who is found to be responsible. If, as seems unlikely, the bomb is linked to south Asian or Middle Eastern terrorists, questions will again arise as to whether Homeland Security is doing all it can do to keep us safe. If, as I believe much more likely, the bomb was placed by a right-wing lunatic, it seems to me that questions need to be raised as to whether the right wing media bears some responsibility for stoking the delusions of such people through its relentless and often unfounded attacks on the Obama administration and the federal government. We need to consider whether it isn't time to return to responsible, ethical, journalism. (Emphasis mine again, SV)
And other Left Wing Bloggers would make statements like this one:
All speculation at this point, but if I was to place a bet on who did this, I’d go with someone whose sympathies are probably more Tea Party than Taliban.
Of course, in the end it turned out this way.
But, there are those that will insist that the attack was likely the work of "Right Wing Nutcases". I suppose the guy who wakes up every morning saying that it will rain today feels vindicated when it finally does, and will continue to do it even in the face of how many times he got it wrong.
For those folks, I'll raise the following data point:
The only other time a nail bomb was intended for use by a political organization in this country was by the Left Wing Weather Underground headed by Willam Ayers, a political ally of and donor to President Obama, when thier plans to set off a nail bomb at an EM Club dance failed because the bomb makers blew themselves up.
So the track record established thus far for nail bombs is that they either come from Left Wing Poltical or Islamic Terror organizations.
Like the lady said
"See how that works?"
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