MULTIPLE VARIETIES OF POST-BOMBING IDIOCY

Ron Fournier is being (correctly) criticized as a fearmonger for his column "Why Boston Bombings Might Be Scarier Than 9/11," but what keeps tripping me up as I read it is that it doesn't even make sense on its own terms:

... the Boston attack is notable not for the number of deaths, but for its social significance. It's one thing -- a dastardly, evil thing -- to strike symbols of economic and military power. It's another to hit the heart of America. Death at the finish line in Boston makes every place (and everybody) less secure.

Malls.

Churches.

Schools.

Ask a mother or father who lived in Washington from 2001-02 what was more terrorizing to your family: The 9/11 attacks or the "Beltway sniper"? Many will say the sniper. Two men were later charged in the horrifyingly random killings of 10 people in several locations throughout the Washington area. The dead and injured included a 39-year-old man shot while cutting grass, a 54-year-old part-time taxi driver shot while pumping gas, a 34-year-old babysitter and housekeeper shot while reading a book on a bench, and a 13-year-old boy shot while entering his middle school....

What the hell does that have to do with the Boston Marathon? Does Fournier think Boston stages a marathon every day, as part of the quotidian Back Bay street entertainment? The marathon is a big annual event. How is experiencing terrorism there like being shot while pumping gas?

And what does Fournier think going to work in and around the World Trade Center was like for ordinary New Yorkers? If you worked there, or if you worked nearby, it didn't matter that you were working in a building that shows up on tourist postcards, or that was a "symbol of economic power" -- that office was your Dunder Mifflin. Going there and working there was your everyday grind.

Fournier's fearmongering is bad enough, but even his categories make no sense.

*****

Then there's the ridiculous Dylan Byers article about the fact that we still -- still! -- don't have a suspect in the bombing:

For many journalists I've spoken with today, this ignorance is tortuous. The identification of the attacker(s) and the reasons for the attack will likely have enormous political (and potentially geoplitical) ramifications, which will vary greatly depending on whether the attacker(s) is domestic or foreign, acting alone or as part of an organization. We're standing on the verge of a very important national conversation about something, and we have no idea what it is.

Digby's right to call this "The plaintive wail of the impatient journalist waiting to be spoon-fed the news," and to complain that he's trying to fit this story into a who's-up? who's-down? Beltway template.

I'd add that Byers has watched way too much television. The bombing happened on Monday. He wrote this on Tuesday. This was a major act of terrorism, clearly well thought out -- it's not a freaking episode of Criminal Minds, with everything wrapped up neatly in 48 minutes plus commercials. Crime-solving in real life takes time.

Ironically, Byers wrote this the day the documentary The Central Park Five aired on PBS. You want something like that to happen, Dylan? A rush to judgment and the arrest and conviction of the wrong people, just so you can have your precious closure? Just so you can write "Boston Bombing: D.C. Winners and Losers"?

*****

Byers quotes a piece on the bombing by Walter Russell Mead. Mead thinks it's a good thing that we don't have a culprit yet:

Amid our grief and sorrow over this attack, we should, I think, be grateful for the interval between the crime and politics. It allows us to treat the horror on its own terms, to see the pure evil of this act divorced from any rationalization or justification....

The anonymity of the crime allows us to experience its enormity. Each hour that has gone by since the blast, each new report of heroism among the survivors and responders, each new detail about the identity of the victims clarifies the essential truth of the situation: there is no cause that can justify this deed.

Excuse me, Walter: You need help in concluding that "no cause that can justify this deed"? Or you think we need help? If we had a suspect in custody, would you seriously have a hard time concluding that this was a monstrous act that can't possibly be justified?

I'm not having any trouble with that idea. And I won't even if an arrest is made this afternoon.