Boston

Knowing that FBI authorities in Boston planned a press conference this morning to give more information on the explosions, I wanted to wait for that to comment. You all know what's going on.

We also know that the FBI has "foiled" several terror attempts by entrapping excitable and angry young men from Middle Eastern backgrounds who might otherwise simply be excitable and angry without the resources to do anything. If this is one of those deals and it got away from them, we'll never know. That would be covered up. In fact, the Boston police chief and FBI man on the scene told us early on that there was no chatter about the planning or execution of this attack picked up by intelligence agencies - it was totally out of the blue. That's possible. But it would also be what you'd say if you were the FBI and knew about it because you created it by trying to entrap those responsible. I don't know what you'd do with the perpetrators who could talk. But I can speculate with the best of them.

But let's just go with the information we're officially given.

There doesn't seem to be any new information this morning.

I only have one choice for TV news - NBC - but I wouldn't be surprised if they were all more or less the same. But I can tell you that it's no better than it ever has been on NBC. Brian Williams (slightly better than the morning's Today Show crew) yesterday repeatedly compared what happened to things he'd personally seen while covering news in war zones. I guess because he couldn't actually say the attacks were foreign terrorists, he kept repeating that the two blasts were typical of what was happening in the Middle East: setting off a blast and then waiting until people gathered around to help to set off another. No, Brian. Actually, as you know, the two devices were a block away from each other, exploding within just a few seconds. That's not at all what you are continuing to crow.

He brought Tom Brokaw on who calmly claimed that we just have to get used to this kind of thing now, because that's "the price of living in a free country." WTF, Tom? Before the 90s, the foreign terror attacks were on US properties overseas or in the skies. And before Tim McVeigh, large-scale domestic terrorism was mostly limited to the KKK, with periodic incidents like the 1910 bombing of the Times Building in Los Angeles. Presumably we were a free country prior to 1990. In fact, I think it's arguable that we were a freer country then.

But Brian wasn't so calm, and he wanted to remind us over and over again that if we aren't even safe at an event like the Boston Marathon where the security was high, how, oh how, could we ever hope to be safe at big public events?

This morning, the female newscaster on the Today Show was still trying to pump for some "expert" speculation. Fortunately, ex-counter-terrorism official, Michael Leiter ,wouldn't bite when she asked for a "gut" impression of who and why. Leiter replied that this isn't something you use your gut to figure out.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.