Boston Blame Game Begins: Some ‘Journalists’ And ‘Experts’ Simply Can’t Help Pointing The Finger

It was never a matter of if, but when.

What we’re seeing right now on our televisions, and what we’ll likely see looped for the days and weeks to come, is something we as Americans always feared would eventually happen at a mall, a concert, a club, a marketplace, or perhaps a large sporting event like the Boston Marathon.

Terrorism isn’t so much about casualties as it is about spreading fear. Now, more than at any time in America since 9/11, most of us will be looking at garbage cans in public places with a suspicious eye. Maybe some of in Northern California will avoid public events like the San Francisco Marathon, set to run exactly two months from tomorrow. Maybe some of us will shop online instead of going to a crowded mall, or watch a ballgame on TV instead of heading to a stadium.

But most Americans are defiant, proud of their freedoms and therefore not willing to change a thing. They know to stop all terrorism means to be right 100 percent of the time. It means having advance intelligence right out of the movie Minority Report—the Tom Cruise film where police can see crimes before they happen—in order to prevent a terrorist, homegrown or foreign, from creating the kind of mayhem and pain we saw in Boston Monday afternoon. Perhaps all it took was one person tossing what looked like garbage into an empty bin. Really, how do you prevent that from happening 100 percent of the time?

In London, FOX News’ Jonathan Hunt reports that city officials took garbage cans off the street altogether following the 7/7 (July 7, 2005) attacks there. Hunt (a Brit) says they have since began to put bomb-resistant garbage cans back on the street since, so rest assured you’ll be hearing about those kind of measures in the coming days as cable news what it does best: Shift the narrative from straight news (what happened, how many were killed and injured, possible suspects, etc) to shameless, unfounded, ludicrous blame (President Obama, Congress, sequester cuts, the NRA, the Tea Party, foreign policy…you name it).

In fact, New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof is already leader of the idiot pack, blaming the attack on Senate Republicans on blocking the appointment of an ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) Director in the tweet below.

All class… and, of course, having an ATF director in place absolutely would have prevented these attacks in Boston — right, Nicolas? (He has since walked back that Tweet, but some myopic ideologues just can’t seem to put their hatred aside even for five minutes during a time we should be united as a nation).

And winners like Kristof won’t be the last. On cue, CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen told host Jake Tapper that the attack was either the work of al Qaeda or “right-wing extremists,” while sitting in a studio 1,000 miles away just hours after the attack. And NBC’s Luke Russert took to Twitter to speculate about a “possible” connection to the ATF deadly siege on Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas…which happened 20 years ago and 2,000 miles away. FOX and CNN also wondered about that possible (flimsy) connection.

Since then, the recklessness has been evident from mainstream and fringe members of the media, as noted Andrew Kirell here early Tuesday morning.

As we’ve all seen from the unspeakable tragedy of Newtown, these kind of situations quickly become a political football. Somehow, this horrifying scene in Boston has already morphed into the same humiliating nonsense. It’s “journalism” at its finest…

Terrorism in the form of bombs is something perhaps many of us expected to happen sooner. America was on edge after 9/11, but outside of homegrown terrorism—and this act in Boston could very well be yet another product of that—we haven’t seen this kind of attack, the kind that features explosions at a large public event, from hitting one of our cities.

For now, we’ll put our 9/11 hats back on again. We’ll be vigilant, cautious, guarded and/or angry.

One thing Americans likely aren’t is surprised.

Sadly, this is our world in the 21st century.

An attack like this was not a matter of if, but when.

Pray for all the innocents affected.

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>> Follow Joe Concha on Twitter @ConchSports

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.