Remember how I said I was not going to pay any attention to Boston tonight? Well, as I was going to bed I decided to check the headlines, and I found this at CNN.com directly below the large picture of bloody bombporn and immediately regretted checking the headlines:
Obama. Didn’t. Say. Terror.
Just fire them all and replace them with a high school journalism class. How could it possibly be any worse?
AnderJ
But but but, if the Kenyan upsurper doesn’t say so…
Seriously though, what a tragic event to wake up to here in Europe.
coin operated
Until they’re caught giving actual blow-jobs to the political elite, they won’t lose their jobs. The ego-stroking is X-rated, to be sure, but there is no nudity involved.
Brutusettu
Such a stupid thing to say that it almost seems like it has to be a false flag so Obama can get away with proposing privatising TVA or something.
Citizen Alan
What makes it doubly exasperating is that if he HAD said “terrorism,” the GOoPers and their lackeys in the media would have attacked him for using that word prematurely “when we didn’t know all the facts.”
Spaghetti Lee
Memo to CNN: This is not Earthsea. Words do not have magical powers.
JKormac
@Citizen Alan: If it turns out to be the work of “patriots”, it will be CNN that won’t say the word “terror”.
Chris
At a time when my abortion-crazed relatives are screaming themselves hoarse over the “liberal bias” of CNN and other media… nice to have such a graphic reminder that they’re full of shit.
scav
oh, the “Celebs tweet about marathon” entry brings a whole level of contemporary journalistic gravitas to the situation as well.
Petorado
The whole list of articles is a loud plea for a meteor to strike their newsroom. “Celebs tweet about marathon”? Do we really have to know about what Bieber or the Kardashians think about this?
Cain
This is the 24 hour news cycle forcing the president to say something newsworthy so that they can start the churn.
The president is not weighing in until the facts are in. These guys just want to roll wtih something so that they can get people plastered to the screen.
I fucking hate 24 hour news, and I hate the WH press corp. I hope they all collectively fall into a bushel of poison ivy.
Suffern ACE
Well, at least “celebs tweet” falls below “omg, if it could happen everywhere!”, so there’s a glimmer of hope for us.
Alison
Okay. I love Rachel but why is she standing in the street just detailing a list of every domestic bombing attack? This feels weird.
cyntax
Seems pretty unfair to HS journalism.
Hill Dweller
Chuck Todd was on Tweety’s show this afternoon parroting the “Obama didn’t say terror” nonsense. But when on Hayes’ show 30 minutes later, he took a different tack. I suspect he feared(rightly so) Hayes would smack down his bullshit.
Suffern ACE
@Alison: I stopped at that point. I guess we sometimes need a refresher course in these matters. Remember after the underwear bomber that Peter King went on the news show to complain that the president wasn’t keep us safe from terrorists and nothing like this ever happened under bush…kind of forgetting the shoe bomber and one or two other events.
cbear
He also didn’t mention zombies or vampires.
That treasonous bastard, this could be the worst cover-up since BENGHAZI!!
UncommonSense
Heck, replace them with a high school metal shop class, and the quality of American journalism increases 300 percent.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@cbear: He also didn’t say “Now watch this drive”.
piratedan
love the fact that they keep mentioning that a Saudi person here on a student visa being treated in the hospital ISN’T a suspect, thereby whipping up the suspicion that he might have been a suspect at some time so they have a way to continue to beat that angle into the ground.
Yutsano
@cbear: Sounds like a job for Grandpa Walnuts. He should open a Senate investigation like yesterday.
Warren Terra
CNN has amazingly managed to be less classy than their usually-despicable former employee Erick Erickson, who unexpectedly decided to be classy today (at least for the length of one tweet; I saw it elsewhere and haven’t inspected his day’s output for consistency).
Redshift
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Win.
R. Porrofatto
But he was wearing an American flag lapel pin when he didn’t say it. Surely that should count for something in Wingnuttia.
Radio One
Phil Griffin is kind of a toad. I’m pretty sure MSNBC was the only cable news network that spent most of the day debating how repulsive Obama was in not calling the tragedy in Boston “an act of terror” immediately, rather than actually trying to figure out what happened.
Pseudonym
I don’t care at all that Obama didn’t say the magic word, but how could something like this not be an act of terrorism? Can anyone think of a plausible scenario? Kids building pipe bombs? A targeted murder?
Redshift
@piratedan: Apparently the NY Post was flogging the Saudi angle late this afternoon. I read a quote someone reposted of the Boston police basically saying “we don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”
Suffern ACE
@Pseudonym: something like Columbine or VA tech. Or some guy pissed that his wife left him to train as a runner. Premeditated personal issues.
opie_jeanne
@piratedan: The NY Post has practically convicted that guy.
DH
Don’t worry Mr. Cole, I am sure that an EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Senator Mccain on this week’s upcoming Meet The Press will answer all our questions. Huckleberry Closetcase, oh, I am sorry, Senator Lindsey Graham, will also be there to help clear up the mystery. Just ignore the news till then.
DH
Don’t worry Mr. Cole, I am sure that an EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Senator Mccain on this week’s upcoming Meet The Press will answer all our questions. Huckleberry Closetcase, oh, I am sorry, Senator Lindsey Graham, will also be there to help clear up the mystery. Just ignore the news till then.
Warren Terra
@Pseudonym:
As Suffern ACE says, it could be a psychopathic act, a scream of rage and hatred made all too tangible but lacking the politically or ideologically coherent angle that usually is required to constitute terrorism.
As one other, very weak, non-terrorism explanation: crime. In the movies, something like this could be a distraction while the baddies rob a bank vault elsewhere or some such. Or, as you say, a targeted assault or assassination could be disguised as a terrorist act. But I’m pretty sure those only happen in the movies.
Pseudonym
@Suffern ACE @Warren Terra: Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.
? Martin
@Pseudonym: Not too dissimilar from what nearly happened in Times Square 2 years ago. High profile urban target. Not sophisticated bomb. Could be al-Qaeda type. Could be line wolf – right wing, or Columbine like Suffern notes.
The only thing I would be surprised to learn is that it’s from an organized group. Al-Qaeda at this point is pretty much just lone wolfs anyway.
James E. Powell
Just fire them all and replace them with a high school journalism class. How could it possibly be any worse?
Are you serious? It would be a disaster.
Very few high school students know how to behave at the right social gatherings. I mean, how many of them have ever been to Martha’s Vineyard? They haven’t been around long enough to know whose ass must be kissed and whose calls should be disregarded.
Also too, they probably won’t understand the necessity of hippie punching.
? Martin
@Warren Terra: Not much different either from Centennial Park bombing. The rationale for that was lost on everyone until Rudolph spelled it out:
If we’re against that kind of reach, this could be a gun fetishist making a statement in a liberal center. Who the fuck knows. Could be anything.
dewzke
Hire me CNN! I don’t give a shit what credentials those other doods have! I’d do better!
David Koch
wait a minute! holy fucking shit!
CNN still exists?!
that’s the most startling news I’ve heard all day
Spaghetti Lee
@? Martin:
the purpose of the attack on July 27 was to confound, anger and embarrass the Washington government
And all the dead people were just collateral, of course.
Really fucking hate these sorts of people. If your damn cause is so important to you, then set yourself on fire or something. Other people do not deserve to die because you can’t get a fucking grip.
Chris
@? Martin:
Yeah. That sentence should be plastered on every TV screen immediately after every attack like this. We just don’t fucking know, and any talking head speculating about who it might be right after the attack is talking out of his ass. Let the cops do their jobs and we’ll know soon enough.
? Martin
@Spaghetti Lee:
They’re all cowards. Every gun fetishist or forced birther that threatens violence or shrieks about tyranny are all pant-shitting cowards. Every last one of them.
Thor Heyerdahl
@? Martin: Or it could be like the 2011 Spokane bombing attempt that they were able to thwart before anything happened
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Thor Heyerdahl: I would say that the three dead, over a hundred injured negates that.
David Koch
if only Colombo, Kojak, and Banacek were still alive, they’d break this case wide open by mid-morning.
Chris
@David Koch:
Paging Rick Castle…
(Only detective show I watch, unless you count White Collar, but it’s a good one).
Pseudonym
@Spaghetti Lee: All two of them?
Thor Heyerdahl
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I was highlighting the “just abouts”. Had the bombs gone off in Spokane during the MLK parade, I’m certain there would have been at least 3 dead.
Thor Heyerdahl
@David Koch: Just one more thing…
fuckwit
Waaaait a minute…. didn’t they pick up some right-wing nutcase for an attempted/failed bomb at an MLK day march in like Seattle, only a year or two ago?
It was a suspicious package under the bleachers, same kind of thing.
But my memory is fuzzy and my Google-fu failing. Sure sounds similar tho.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@fuckwit: Spokane, which is what Thor Heyerdahl was referring to in previous comments.
scav
speaking of head spinning, here’s another. Should get it in stereo. GOP blasts Obama plan to consider selling the Tennessee Valley Authority
fuckwit
@Warren Terra: Uh, there were apparently multiple bombs, some of which were unexploded (and will provide some good forensic clues, I hope). Probably not one guy.
Small group of guys. Whether foreign or domestic, I have no idea. I’d bet, just based on the MO and symbolism of the date and location, that it was teabaggers at work. Probably outraged over the inevitability both of taxes and of gun safety laws finally working their way through the sausage factory.
Why they wanted to hurt runners, I have no idea. Maybe just because it was a well-known crowd of people?
Sick fuckers. I can only wish the best of speed, luck, and accuracy to all the cops working on this case. I hope they figure it out quickly.
Valdivia
@? Martin:
I was thinking it could be that–making a point of how they will/can still kill people without their guns of something, ergo, guns don’t kill people.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@scav:
Soshulism for me, not for thee. Bee-yoo-tee-full.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@fuckwit:
If they were small enough and triggered by cell phones, then it could have been one guy. We aren’t talking about truck bombs here.
raven
“Remember how I said I was not going to pay any attention to Boston tonight?”
I knew it was bullshit the moment I read it.
Pseudonym
Apropos of nothing. This is an open thread, right?
Valdivia
@Pseudonym:
just. wow.
raven
“Why were people in the audience telling people to be calm moments before the bomb went off? Was this another false flag staged attack to take our civil liberties and promote Homeland Security by sticking their hands down our pants on the streets?”
This is the fucker that was screaming at Patrick in the presser.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@raven:
*sigh*
In other news, via TNC:
Ya know, Aquabuddha, maybe they’d listen to you if you admitted that the GOP poached almost all of those racist Democrats using its Southern Strategy.
amk
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): paulturd is a whiny little pos, isn’t he ?
scav
@raven: They’re already at the guardian too. The detail about the hands down out pants liberty stealing is one for the ages, even for non-Freudians.
raven
@scav: Yea well, just be cool and go shopping I guess.
scav
@raven: Quite a teleport to extremes, that leap.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@amk:
That is no ordinary whine. That is a calculated whine.
Cmm
@scav:
So privatization is awesome when the government teat is being pulled out of someone else’s mouth, but not if it pulls the teat out of your own mouth, got it.
jon
Saw a report that the first twittering from the area went like this:
“Holy shit! Explosion!”
Blasphemous. Vulgar. Concise. Better journalism than 99% of what was written about the day, though not suitable for high school for fear children’s virgin ears may be roughly deflowered by that harshest of mild expletives. Also, the chess club bake sale needs promoting.
Kathleen
I never watch CNN, EXCEPT last night I was looking for coverage of the Marathon after the major networks resumed normal programming and I landed on Anderson Cooper’s show. One of his guests breathlessly pronounced that, according to his “sources”, police (or some law enforcement agency) issued a “BOLO” (“Be On The Lookout”) for, wait for it, a “dark skinned or black male who may speak in a foreign accent”. Or may not. When I had the good sense to switch to ESPN (who offered excellent coverage), I saw Patrick’s press conference with law enforcement and strangely enough I heard nary a word about that.
different-church-lady
I’d think it would be a damn site better — then at least they’d have a staff that had actually studied journalism at some point.
AxelFoley
@JKormac:
BINGO!
AxelFoley
@Spaghetti Lee:
What gets me is these cowards have issues with the government, but are too chickenshit to take on the government. They’ll target civilians, but won’t fuck with the big, bad government because they know they’ll get rolled.
Lee
My oldest (16) daughter is in high school journalism. I know she could do better.
Nutella
@Citizen Alan:
Yep. It’s a feature of news coverage of Dem presidents, not a bug.
nemesis
Sumpin tells me that tax day is a motivator for the bomber.
Where I work, we have CNN running in the lobby. On occasion I walk by the TV there and make a point of checking out CNN. McCNN, that is. They cover strange silly stories for days. Im convinced, as Ive said before, that McCNN runs provocative stories on their website, counts the clicks, then runs the high click stories on the vulgar eyeball torture machine. Its, once again, entertainment and opinion masquerading as news and it is terrible.
nemesis
If the runners had been strapped, then nothing woulda happ….oh, wait.
MobiusKlein
In 1947, April 16, a massive explosion blew up tons of ammonium nitrate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Disaster
Would we piss our pants today, from the same thing?
Boots Day
According to the Wall Street Journal, Obama “was careful not to use the words ‘terror’ or ‘terrorism.'” I wonder how they knew that. Did he at one point say, “I don’t want to call this… well, I’m not going to say it but it rhymes with ‘Jim Lehrer.'”
Maybe afterward he said, “Crap, I didn’t say ‘terror’? Total brain fart on my part.” Who knows?
hilzoy
“Obama. Didn’t. Say. Terror.”
I was watching CNN right before Obama’s address. Whoever they had on (White House reporter) was going on about how Obama would *certainly* describe this event as ‘terror’, given Benghazi. She didn’t seem to have any actual insight to share, so she just kept going on about this one thing, apparently because it was the one and only thought she had about what Obama might say.
After the speech, naturally, everyone kept saying: wow, he didn’t describe it as terror. Why ever not?
I think that’s how this idiocy got started.
g
Mandatory “T” word. It’s the new flag pin.
Villago Delenda Est
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
OK, I broke my calculator trying to count the outright lies in this sentence.
johnny aquitard
Easy. If you go over to redstate.
They’re busy squawking about how it’s too early to politicize this (I’d guess because most of the ‘politicization’ is people pointing out it’s Patriot Day and tax day). Also, that republicans are in no way to blame for not having an ATF director for years, and even though they obstructed that appointment, any terror capability lapses as a result is in no way their fault.
Also too, Reagan said fascism inspired the New Deal, and Progressive, Liberal, Nazi, Communist, Socialist = Democrat.
Nothing about Bengahzi though.
kc
Obama did say terror this morning apparently, so now CNN is all “Obama finally said ‘terror.'”
What did we do to deserve the media we got?
nellcote
I vote for drone strike on nerd prom this year after PBO has left the building.