Ever play the game "telephone" in school or with friends when you were a kid?
One person would whisper into the ear of another person, followed by her whispering what was supposed to be the same message to the next person, followed by him doing likewise and so on, until the last person in the sequence, several people later, would say what he or she had been told. Invariably it bore little resemblance to the original message.
Boston Marathon Bombing
By Jack Coleman | April 16, 2013 | 12:30 PM EDT
By Scott Whitlock | April 16, 2013 | 12:01 PM EDT
The journalists of Good Morning America on Tuesday pointed a speculative finger in the wake of the Boston bombing. An ABC graphic wondered, "Could this be homegrown terror?" In a segment full of guesses, reporter Pierre Thomas featured leftist Mark Potok, the man who labeled the Family Research Council (FRC) a "hate group."
Regarding the date that the explosion occurred on, Potok linked, "The real Patriots Day is April 19th. That is the date that counts for people on the extreme right in the United States." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Other than Potok, no other expert voices were featured in the segment. News anchor Josh Elliott backed up Potok's assertions, theorizing, "One big clue could be Monday's date, April 15th. The anniversaries of some of the most harrowing incidents in domestic terror are coming this week." Thomas then went on to highlight David Koresh and the Oklahoma City bombing. The justification? They also happened in April.
By Geoffrey Dickens | April 16, 2013 | 11:42 AM EDT
Actor and stand-up comic Jay Mohr used the tragic bombing of the Boston Marathon to attack gun rights. The actor, probably best known for his role as a sleazy sports agent in Jerry Maguire, used the bombing as an excuse to attack guns, as he demanded: "2nd amendment must go."
In later tweets he went on to slam his critics as people with gun "fetishes." The following are just some off Mohr's April 15 tweets: (LANGUAGE WARNING)
CSM's Peter Grier Claims Boston Marathon Is 'Not Particularly Significant' To Theorize About 'Domestic Connection'
By Tom Blumer | April 16, 2013 | 10:28 AM EDT This morning at the Christian Science Monitor, Staff Writer Peter Grier demonstrated a stunning level of ignorance about the Boston Marathon's significance. He then built on that ignorance to posit that yesterday's bombing at the Marathon's finish line "could indicate that the bomber was a local or at least a native of the United States."
Among other things, Grier seems completely ignorant of the fact that Boston is one of six "World Marathon Majors" (the other five are New York, London, Tokyo, Berlin, and Chicago). The related paragraph from Grier's report, followed by other indicators of the Marathon's worldwide significance, follow the jump:
AP Doubles Down on Boston Bombing T-Word Reluctance: 'The Blasts ... Raised Fears of a Terrorist Attack'
By Tom Blumer | April 16, 2013 | 9:10 AM EDT Those who might have given the Associated Press's Jimmy Golen the benefit of the doubt early this morning for writing that the Boston Marathon bombings "raised alarms that terrorists might have struck again in the U.S." are going to have a tougher time doing so with his 8:15 a.m. report, in which he wrote that "the blasts among the throngs of spectators raised fears of a terrorist attack." In context, readers can insert "that it was" to replace "of." (If he meant to write "that there will be another terorrist attack," he would have. He didn't.)
The first several paragraphs of Golen's report (since revised; the referenced report is saved here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) follow they jump:
By Tom Blumer | April 16, 2013 | 4:48 AM EDT
On Monday, Matt Vespa at NewsBusters noted the reluctance of the Associated Press to characterize what it would only call an "extremist attack" in Mogadishu, Somalia as "terrorism."
In his early morning dispatch in the wake of the bombings at the Boston Marathon, the AP's Jimmy Golen at least used the word. But, incredibly, despite law enforcement authorities and others describing the bombings as an act of terrorism, Golen was still strangely tentative:
By Noel Sheppard | April 15, 2013 | 6:46 PM EDT
As NewsBusters reported earlier, MSNBC's Chris Matthews seems hell-bent on trying to blame the Boston Marathon bombing on a domestic terrorist, preferrably a conservative one.
After saying shortly into his Hardball program, "Normally domestic terrorists, people, tend to be on the far right," Matthews later asked his guests if Tax Day had something to do with the event since it doesn't mean a "whole lot to the Arab world or Islamic world or the, certainly not to al Qaeda" (video follows with transcript):
By Scott Whitlock | April 15, 2013 | 5:55 PM EDT
Just hours after explosions rocked the Boston Marathon on Monday, Chris Matthews speculated, "Normally domestic terrorists, people, tend to be on the far right." He then reconsidered and suggested, "...That’s not a good category, just extremists, let’s call them that." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
During live coverage, the Hardball host highlighted a possible explosion at John F. Kennedy's presidential library and thought this could be a personal attack on the Democratic Party: "...But going after the Kennedy Library, not something at Bunker Hill, not something from the Freedom Trail or anything that kind of historic, but a modern political figure of the Democratic Party. Does that tell you something?" (Police are now considering the incident at the JFK library to be fire-related.) One can only guess what it tells Chris.
Al Sharpton's Radio Producer Tweets Speculation That 'Anti-Gov' Group Behind Boston Marathon Bombings
By Ken Shepherd | April 15, 2013 | 4:57 PM EDT At 3:38 p.m. Eastern, Huffington Post blogger and Al Sharpton radio producer Nida Khan speculated on Twitter that an anti-government group may be responsible for the deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon.
"We don't know anything yet of course, but it is tax day & my first thought was all these anti-gov groups, but who knows," tweeted Khan, who immediately received a lot of blowback on Twitter for politicizing the tragedy. But rather than back down, Khan defended her speculation in subsequent tweets like these:
By Scott Whitlock | April 15, 2013 | 4:44 PM EDT
Never let a tragedy go to waste. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on Monday quickly used the explosions in Boston for political gain, linking the Republican Party to the horrific act. At 4:10pm, Kristof tweeted, "explosion is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking apptment." [UPDATE: Kristof has "taken back" the comment and deleted the tweet. See below for screen shot of the tweet.]
Kristof then tweeted a link to a Washington Post story about Senator Charles Grassley questioning the fitness of Obama's Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms nominee. Kristof's comments earned a rebuke from the liberal Politico. Dylan Byers reported, "Kristof's tweet earned a number of responses expressing either anger or bafflement." [SECOND UPDATE: More journalists are politicizing the tragedy. See below.]
By NB Staff | April 15, 2013 | 3:27 PM EDT
Moments ago there were explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. It has not been confirmed, but its quite likely these were bombings. Please keep the victims and their families in your prayers.
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