As the fallout from the Boston Marathon bombings spreads across the Internet and the television airwaves, commentators and talk show hosts are exhibiting curious reactions to the events that transpired yesterday. For example, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly claimed that President Obama made a mistake when he called the bombing a “tragedy.”
O’Reilly said that when the president promised justice “he made one mistake.” He “called the attack a tragedy,” O’Reilly said. “It was not. It was a vile act of violence, designed to kill innocent people, including children…This makes me sick.”
New York Congressman Peter King, who joined O’Reilly on his show, added that “there’s no doubt in my mind that this is a terrorist attack.” King acknowledged that while all the facts were not known, and officials haven’t said who is responsible for the attack, he believed they should investigating al-Qaida, or an offshoot of the organization.
O’Reilly backed off from his comments a little later, saying he didn’t want to be “quibbling with the commander-in-chief.”
Obama “did his job today, and I trust that he will get to the bottom of it,” he said. “But it’s not a tragedy. I mean, these are well thought out, military campaigns, directed against civilians. This is what the Nazis did.”
On Fox & Friends, the question discussed was how the police arrived at the Saudi man they were questioning in connection with the bombing, and whether it was a case of racial profiling.
Former New Jersey Superior Court judge and Fox analyst Andrew Napolitano defended the decision to bring the man in, noting he “appeared different from everybody else… He appeared deceitful.”
Megyn Kelly, who was filling in for Gretchen Carlson, asked whether that was because he doesn’t look like everyone else.
“How much of that can be attributed, the suspicion on him to that, versus we have real reason to believe this guy committed the terrorist attack?” she asked.
“When there is a burning compelling, governmental interest to gather evidence against someone who might be involved, almost any judge would sign that kind of a search warrant,” Napolitano replied. “They can’t develop that information overnight, but they can do it pretty quickly. Was he honest or was he deceptive when he made his visa application, which is a lot more complex post-9/11 — but which any smart and determined person can trick the government and get in here, even though they have evil designs. Was he a real student or was this a front?”
Martin RichardNBC News reported that authorities identified the eight-year-old boy killed in the bomb blasts as Martin Richard of Dorchester, Mass. The boy’s mother, Denise, and his six-year-old sister have reportedly sustained serious injuries from the blasts, but his father and brother were uninjured.
NBC spoke to neighbors who said Martin was “vivacious” and loved playing outside and climbing up neighborhood trees. On the family’s Dorchester home’s stoop, a single candle burned with “Peace” written in chalk on the front sidewalk.