Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Slate Editor: 'Strong Consensus' That Dzhokhar Was 'Normal'
By Matt Vespa | April 19, 2013 | 8:14 PM EDT

"There's a strong consensus he was pretty normal." That's how Slate's Emily Bazelon described surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who seems to have been discovered by the police. You cannot make this stuff up. The Slate writer interviewed two family friends, who attended Tsarnaev's high school who said of him:

"He was really nice,” Sam Greenberg [Bazelon’s family friend], now a junior at Harvard, told me over the phone. Sam played junior varsity soccer with Tsarnaev for a year and also hung out with him occasionally in the athletic area after school. “He was pretty quiet. Didn’t have a ton to say but was very normal, seemed like a nice kid.”

Fox's Chris Wallace Asks: Perhaps Boston Residents Would Have Liked Firearms During Tsarnaev Manhunt?
By Randy Hall | April 19, 2013 | 7:17 PM EDT

While discussing the ongoing manhunt for the second suspect behind the bombing of the Boston Marathon, Chris Wallace -- the host of Fox News Sunday -- linked the Monday terrorist attack with the debate on gun rights currently going on across the country.

Pointing to the fact that most of the region is in a tight lockdown due to the search for 26-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Wallace asked how many people in the area “do you think, might like a gun to be able to protect themselves and defend their homes?”

NYT Headline Over Story on Bombing Suspects: 'Far From War-Torn Homeland, Trying to Fit In'
By Clay Waters | April 19, 2013 | 5:02 PM EDT

The New York Times has been mostly steady and factual in its coverage of the bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. But the paper is taking criticism Friday for its benign headline over its online story on two terrorist suspects from Chechnya, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, killed in a shootout early Friday morning, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, still on the loose Friday afternoon.

A headline writer went the extra mile to make the pair sound sympathetic: "Far From War-Torn Homeland, Trying to Fit In." After criticism, the headline evolved into...."Brothers Seen as Good Students and Avid Athletes." Much better?

Reporter Erica Goode made the two terrorist suspects sound rather normal:

Will Media Report: Suspected Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Appears to Be Obama Fan
By Matthew Sheffield | April 19, 2013 | 3:58 PM EDT

Several posts on what several news organizations have confirmed as the Twitter profile of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev indicate that that the 19-year-old Chechnyan immigrant was a supporter of Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election.

If that is indeed the case, it does not mean that Obama has any sort of connection with or responsibility for the bombing suspect or his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It does, however, completely reverse the fantasy that many American liberals were openly hoping for: that the bombing suspects might be revealed as Timothy McVeigh 2.0, someone whose very name they could use to smear and deride anyone who stands against their belief system. In other words, one of those “dog whistles” we keep hearing so much about.