The First Time the World Trade Center Was Attacked

---

---

History tells us — correctly — that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed in a terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001.

But that was not the first time terrorists targeted the iconic towers.

Terrorists tried to blow up the World Trade Center 25 years ago today with a car bomb in the basement of the North Tower (which would be the first of the towers to be struck by a hijacked airplane in 2001). The plan was for the North Tower to collapse into the South Tower, killing tens of thousands of people in the process.

That plan did not succeed. It caused some damage, killed half a dozen people and injured hundreds more (most of the injuries occurred during the process of evacuating the tower), but the Twin Towers remained standing for more than eight years.

Outraged initially, Americans became distracted by other things, and they went on with their lives. The terrorists learned from the experience and returned with a far deadlier plan in 2001.

The names of the conspirators on that first occasion — Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmed Ajaj and the financier Khaled Sheikh Mohammed — became infamous in American history. Most were convicted in U.S. courts.

Osama bin Laden, who was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, was not found to have any connection to the 1993 bombing.

The body count 25 years ago today was significantly lower than the one on Sept. 11, of course, and that seems to make forgetting about what happened in 1993 justifiable — but it is instructive in evaluating the mentality of the terrorists.

The 1993 attack didn't produce as many casualties and the damage wasn't as extensive, but these people weren't like jilted boyfriends who impulsively acted on urges to get even with their exes. The terrorists were — and, presumably, still are — very patient and willing to devote as much time as necessary to learn from their mistakes. They waited more than eight years before trying again, but their attack in 2001 was far more productive from their point of view.

That will be worth remembering if the terrorists attempt something else in the future. If they fail, don't think that it is over. They will almost certainly be back.

If I Should Die Tomorrow ...

---

---

Late last week reports suggested possible terrorist attacks in New York, Virginia and here in Texas tomorrow, the day before the 2016 election.

No specific locations were mentioned, and Texas is a really big place. The prospects for terrorist attacks here — and in those other states, too, for that matter — are practically endless.

ISIS isn't the culprit in these reports. Al Qaeda (a familiar name from the past) is. But if a terrorist attack occurs, will it really matter which one is behind it? Isn't terrorism terrorism, no matter who carries it out?

In the now–infamous words of Hillary Clinton, what difference would it make? Except, I suppose, to be sure which one is held responsible.

But we're already pursuing both, aren't we? I mean, that is what I thought. Maybe I was wrong.

Still when the state in which one lives is mentioned in such a context, it is only natural to wonder if something could happen where you live. I spend close to two hours commuting back and forth to work each weekday. It isn't hard for me to imagine something happening along my commute route.

That has forced me to contemplate something I don't like to contemplate — my own death — mainly because when I do, I generally tend to focus on my regrets, all the things I wanted to do but won't get to do.

Oddly, though, as Monday approaches, I find myself at peace. I haven't been thinking about the things that I didn't do. I've been thinking of the things for which I am grateful.

If I should die tomorrow, I am thankful for so many things.

I had loving parents who gave me a wonderful childhood. We weren't rich. I didn't have everything I wanted, but I had everything I needed to be happy and healthy.

My father was a religion professor at a private college. Sometimes he took continuing education courses in the summers, but some years he had summers entirely off. When he did, my parents took my brother and me on road trips. We saw so many historic sites and monuments when I was growing up. I wish everyone could have that experience. It gave me an in–depth education of my country's history — and a perspective on the subject most of my friends did not have.

I had great mentors in my life — teachers, co–workers, ministers. I'm grateful for all the things they taught me, and I try to put those lessons into action whenever I can. And I am thankful for the encouragement they gave me. I have tried to return the favor to those who have come after me.

I've had good friends in my life. Some are deceased now, and if there is an afterlife I look forward to seeing them soon. I have good friends who still exist in this life. Some have left my life, for one reason or another, and some are still in my life. We disagree about things from time to time, but the true friends don't let that stand in the way. For long, anyway. And I have many true friends.

I could have chosen a more lucrative profession, I suppose, but it sure has been fun. In fact, in hindsight, the only truly bad thing about working for newspapers was the pay. I got to meet some interesting folks, both in and out of the newsroom but always because of my newspaper jobs. Oh, sure, there were things about my newspaper jobs that I didn't like — but isn't it that way with every job?

My field has also given me an opportunity, as a journalism professor, to work with young aspiring journalists, and that has been a rewarding experience. In recent years I have served as an adjunct advising a community college newspaper that was recently named the best college newspaper by the Associated College Press. The other nine finalists were four–year schools.

My job has given me the opportunity to do the things I always wanted to do when I was growing up. I wanted to write, and I have done that. As this blog clearly shows, I am writing today. I hope that, whenever I do die, I will have written something that day.

I can't be sure of that, of course. Sometimes people are unconscious for days, weeks, months, even years before they die. So I can't be absolutely certain that I will write something in the hours just before I die.

But if a terrorist attack occurs here tomorrow — and I become a victim of that attack — then this post will be testimony to the fact that I did write something in the hours before I died. I died with my boots on, you might say.

Now, just because I am at peace with the idea of dying does not mean it is what I want to happen. I want to live to see tomorrow's sunset and Tuesday's sunrise.

I'd like to see who wins the presidency after the nastiest campaign in my memory — and probably in the history of the United States. I've been studying American presidential history nearly all my life, and I know there have been some nasty campaigns in the past so I won't go so far as to claim this has been the worst ever, but it has certainly been the worst in my lifetime.

Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I would like to know who the American voters choose to lead them for the next four years. To not be able to see that would be like watching all but the last 10 minutes of a movie.

It would have to go on my list of unfinished business. Some people might call that a "bucket list." I don't really have a bucket list. (Sometimes I feel like comedian John Pinette, who said he had a list, but it wasn't a bucket list — although, he added, it did rhyme with bucket.) It's just a list of things I would like to finish before I die.

But I guess we all die leaving something incomplete. So if I die tomorrow, there will be things that are unfinished. That's the way it is.

And now, let tomorrow come — and bring whatever it brings.

The Assassination of Anwar Sadat

---

---

For most Americans, the war on terror began in 2001, when the World Trade Center was brought down by two hijacked airplanes. For a few, it may have begun eight years earlier when the first attack on the World Trade Center took place.

And, to be fair, that probably is when the war first came to America.

But it's been going on longer than that — in the sense that Islamic martyrs have been dying for the cause. Thirty–five years ago today, Lt. Khalid Islambouli, an Egyptian military officer and Islamic extremist, assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat during the annual Victory Parade in Cairo commemorating the Egyptian army's crossing of the Suez Canal to reclaim part of the Sinai Peninsula from Israel in 1973.

It probably evaded most Americans' radars, but Sadat's final months had been rocky. There had been a military coup in June that failed, and there had been riots. There were those who said the riots were the outcome of domestic issues that plagued the country, but Sadat believed the Soviet Union was orchestrating an attempt to drive him from power.

That was also a particularly violent time in the history of the world — at least in terms of high–profile violence. President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II had survived assassination attempts earlier in the year. Ex–Beatle John Lennon had been gunned down in front of his New York apartment building nearly a year before.

Egyptian Islamists had been angered when Sadat signed the Camp David Accords with President Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in September 1978 — for which Sadat and Begin shared the Nobel Prize.

There were several missed opportunities for authorities to take Islambouli into custody before the assassination, most notably in September 1981 when Sadat ordered a roundup of more than 1,500 people, among them many Jihad members, but somehow Islambouli's cell was missed.

Then, in spite of ammunition seizure rules that should have prevented the assassination, the cell managed to get into the parade and jump from the truck in which they were riding when it approached the reviewing stand, where Sadat was supposedly protected by four layers of security and eight bodyguards. Sadat stood, thinking it was part of the show. He was mortally wounded by a grenade and gunfire, along with 10 others in the reviewing stand. Vice President Hosni Mubarak, who had been sitting next to Sadat, was one of 28 who were wounded but survived.

Islambouli was identified as the man responsible for Sadat's wounds and executed the next year.

Nearly 30 years later, Islambouli's mother said she was proud that her son had killed Sadat.

What does this say about the mentality of the Islamic extremists that they are still waging this war nearly four decades later? It says the same thing that a second attack on the World Trade Center eight years after the first told us.

This is a foe that is patient. It picks its battles, and it learns from its mistakes.

Now, I know that a mother's love is a powerful thing. I covered murder trials as a young newspaper reporter, and I would not be surprised to hear the mother of a murderer say that she loved her son/daughter in spite of the crime(s) he/she committed. In fact, I have heard mothers say that. It is certainly not uncommon for Christians to say that they hate the sin but love the sinner.

But this mother says she is proud that her son committed the sin. That is a different matter, and it gives you great insight into a mindset.

This foe truly believes it is waging a holy war, and it is willing to give it as much time as it takes — generations, if necessary. The jihadists take inspiration wherever they can.

Since Sadat's assassination, Islambouli has been inspiring Islamist movements the world over. In Tehran a street was named for him after the assassination. A postage stamp was issued showing him shouting defiantly in his prison cell, and Ayatollah Khomeini declared him a martyr after he had been executed.

This is not a traditional foe, and it cannot be beaten in the traditional ways.

The Game Changer

---

---

Last night's mass shooting in Orlando, Florida is a political game changer.

I have long thought that terrorism is the real wild card in this year's campaign. Terrorist attacks make people feel unsafe, which is, of course, the objective. The more terrorist attacks there are between now and Election Day, the worse the news is for the Democratic ticket that wishes to succeed Barack Obama and Joe Biden — because terrorist attacks make voters compare the situation under those who have been in power with the situation when their predecessors were in power.

And, say what you will about George W. Bush, terrorists weren't carrying out attacks on Americans in California and Florida or anywhere else when he was in the Oval Office. At least, not after 9–11. The wisdom of fighting the terrorists in the Middle East instead of having to fight them here is not lost on American voters when they see news reports of people being gunned down at nightclubs and Christmas parties.

So the best–case scenario for the Democrats would be if no more terrorist attacks occurred on U.S. soil between now and the election. I'm sure that is what they are hoping for.

But I don't think that is what will happen just as I never thought the election campaign would pass without being marred by a single terrorist attack. And it hasn't. Is there anyone so naive as to think there will not be at least one more in the next five months?

I've heard implications of the left's favorite straw man, the automatic weapon, which is already heavily regulated and wasn't even used in this attack. It's easier to ignore terrorism when it is happening half a world away than it is when it is happening just down the road a piece.

And it is easier to blame something that isn't responsible — automatic weapons — than it is to blame something that is responsible — Islamic radicalism.

On Being President

---

---

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has written that what Teddy Roosevelt called the "bully pulpit" of the presidency is "somewhat diminished in our age of fragmented attention and fragmented media." I am an admirer of Goodwin's work, but I think she is wrong in that assessment.

The bully pulpit is as influential as ever — if not potentially moreso with so many means of communication available. Its relevance depends upon who has access to it and how it is applied.

I have been wondering — since before Barack Obama took office more than seven years ago — what it was about him that I found unpresidential. You see, for a long time, I wasn't able to put my finger on it.

If I had the opportunity to give him some advice today, I think I have a pretty good idea now what it is that has bothered me and what I would advise him to do. With about nine months left in his presidency, my guess is it wouldn't help much now. But it couldn't hurt.

There can be little doubt that, for some (but certainly not all) of his critics, Obama's skin color is, as many in the Democratic Party have frequently suggested, the issue. That is impossible to deny. Racism is an unfortunate element in the human equation. It always has been, and I suspect it always will be — like greed and lust and other unattractive qualities that take control of some people. Some folks do a better job of overcoming those negative qualities than others.

For a long time, I wondered if I was being racist because I found myself objecting so frequently to Obama's policies. The idea troubled me greatly because I was raised by liberal parents, and I always believed their values were my values. My mother was involved in promoting positive race relations in the Arkansas town in which I grew up, and I have always believed that, as a result of my upbringing, I am a tolerant person.

I soon concluded that I wasn't a racist, even if there were some in the Democratic Party who insisted on labeling everyone who objected to Obama policies a hater. More than once, I have voted for black candidates — and other candidates who differed from me in other ways — for office. When I think back on my voting history, I know that my votes have been decided by issues and political philsophies — and my political philosophy has evolved over time, as I suppose everyone's does. "The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20," Muhammad Ali once said, "has wasted 30 years of his life."

To issue a blanket assertion that anyone who objects to Obama's policies and his approach to his job is racist is to ignore some important facts, and much of it, I believe, has to do with fear, plain and simple.

People are genuinely frightened these days — they were frightened before Obama took office — and there is certainly a lot for them to fear. It doesn't matter whether the president thinks the fears are justified. It isn't enough to remind people of the phrases that past presidents used (i.e., FDR's "We have nothing to fear but fear itself") to calm jittery generation of long ago.

People want the president of their own time to recognize the legitimacy of their fears, to speak to them in a reasonable, not belittling, fashion and to keep them informed. Time after time Obama has come up short in this respect.

We live in an unprecedented age of instant information, but it hasn't always been that way. Presidents of the past were limited by the technology that existed in their times. Presidents have only been using television for about half a century, radio for about a century. In the first 150 years of America's existence, news traveled much more slowly; it took weeks, sometimes months for a president's remarks on a topic to reach citizens on the country's outskirts.

But people of the 21st century are plugged in to things in a way that their forebears never were. They can get up–to–the–minute information on just about any topic on their smart phones or laptops. But information is really all they get. They do get what passes for context — what journalism students are told is the elusive "why" of a news story — but it is usually political agenda disguised as context.

A president has to function above that.

Naturally, a president who is seeking re–election can be forgiven for allowing politics to permeate his remarks — but outside of the electoral battlefield, a president is expected to be respectful of people's fears, even if he doesn't share them.

A president is expected to act like the president of all the people, and far too many people have felt that this president only sees himself as president of a certain segment of the population — that, as far as this president is concerned, those who disagree with him can, in the memorable words of John Ehrlichman, "twist slowly in the wind."

Take the subject of terrorism, for example. Its purpose is to frighten people, and the videotaped beheadings and equally horrific executions have done the trick. So have the attacks that have been carried out in places like Brussels and Paris and San Bernardino.

When the president pays little attention and chooses to go golfing or dancing or to a baseball game instead of trying to engage the people, instead of explaining why he believes terrorism is not as great a threat as people perceive it to be, he may honestly believe that he is doing the right thing by not contributing to a chorus of hysterical voices.

But he is really fanning the flames. Fears go unchecked, and that leads to things like surges in gun purchases — which is the opposite of the outcome Obama has sought as president. So Obama's behavior in the face of terrorist attacks has been counterproductive.

Same with the economy and unemployment.

Few modern Americans, as a portion of the population, had experienced anything comparable to the Great Recession, and they were understandably alarmed to see their jobs disappearing, their life savings slipping away, their very homes being taken from them. Even those who lived through the economy of the late '70s and early '80s had not seen anything like it.

In such times, the American people expect reassurance from their leader, and today America's leader likes to brag of the unemployment rate being at 5%, but words from him were few and far between when unemployment was over 10%. Even if he had no news to report, he needed to do a 21st–century version of Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats, telling people what he was doing to turn things around and what he planned to do in the future.

Instead they have been left in the dark by this president.

The president, whoever he or she may be, has enormous influence on people — even those who did not vote for him or her.

But the bully pulpit must be used in a way that unites a diverse population instead of dividing it. The presidents who have understood this are the ones who have earned a revered role in American history.

Decisions Are Made By Those Who Show Up

---

---

I had heard the quote "Decisions are made by those who show up" long before I heard Allison Janney (as C.J. Cregg) say it on The West Wing. I don't know who said it first. Some say it was Woody Allen. Some say it was Harry Truman. I've even heard it suggested that Margaret Mead said it first.

That isn't really important. What is important is that it expresses a truism that is hard, if not impossible, to refute, especially in the world of politics. It is possible, perhaps even probable, that, when all is said and done, no other sentence will better describe the eventual outcome of the 2016 presidential campaign.

I say that because I have been reading a number of columns lately from political observers, most of whom have already demonstrated that their sympathies are with Hillary Clinton — and Bernie Sanders, too (they presume, and probably justifiably, that Hillary will be the nominee so they can afford to be inclusive) — and they insist that the battle between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz will divide the Republican Party, no matter who gets the nomination, and that will guarantee Clinton's election.

It's inevitable, they say.

Let me tell you something. Nothing is inevitable — except, as they say, death and taxes.

We're more than seven months from the election. That is an eternity in politics.

And polls are merely snapshots of opinion at a particular point in time.

I've been a student of history for many years (amateur student of history, mostly, although I was an actual history student when I was in graduate school; it was my minor), and I can appreciate the pundits' use of history in their logic even though I think they tend to misapply its lessons. Still, at a time when most young people can name every member of the Kardashian family but few can tell you who the vice president is, I find any knowledge and application of current events and history refreshing, even encouraging.

The most prevalent theory seems to be that, in the last six elections, Democrats have won nearly enough states regularly to win the whole shootin' match. They lost the electoral vote in two of those elections and the popular vote in one. Therefore, this theory goes, the Democrats already have nearly enough states in the bag to win. They only need to win a couple more to clinch victory.

The Republicans, on the other hand, would have to win all the states they have been winning — mostly Southern and Western states — just about run the table on all the battleground states and perhaps try to peel off one or two of the states that are assumed to be in the Democrats' corner to win the national election — and that, the pundits agree, is a mountain too high.

This ignores the fact that American politics is cyclical.

Yes, it is true that, for example, California, the biggest prize of them all, the state that, all by itself, can deliver precisely one–fifth of the electoral votes a candidate needs to win, has voted for Democrats six straight times. But it voted for Republicans in the six elections prior to that.

And you can find all sorts of other examples like that, states that have been voting for Democrats in every election since 1992, and some for an election before that, but many of those states voted Republican fairly regularly for decades prior. The political landscape is always shifting. The issues are always changing. And the events that affect elections are always different. They may look similar, but they are never identical. It's like Mark Twain said. History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

One clear trend has emerged since the end of World War II. A party typically wins two straight national elections, then the other party wins the next two elections. Only once in the last 70 years has a party won three consecutive presidential elections. That was in the 1980, 1984 and 1988 presidential elections. Ronald Reagan won the first two, and his vice president, George H.W. Bush, won the third.

And only once since World War II has a party taken the White House from the other party in a national election and failed to win the next one. That was when Jimmy Carter won in 1976 and lost in 1980.

(By the way, Reagan trailed President Carter by 25 points in the polls that were taken at this stage of the 1980 presidential campaign. He won by 10 percentage points when the votes were counted in November.)

I've been following elections for a long time, and the one great truth is that turnout is what matters. Who shows up? And why?

To a great extent Barack Obama owed his election eight years ago to an unlikely coalition of groups that have seldom been active in politics. In 2008 I think many were motivated by the historic opportunity to participate in the election of the nation's first black president. I also think that the 2016 Clinton campaign was built around the idea that these groups would be similarly motivated by the opportunity to participate in the election of the nation's first female president, but those groups seem to have lost their taste for politics. Maybe they grew complacent with their successes in 2008 and 2012. Whatever the reason (if there is a single reason) turnout in Democratic primaries is way down this year. Across the board.

Turnout in the Republican primaries, on the other hand, is way up. Again, across the board. I think it is safe to assume that most of those voters will be motivated to turn out in November even if their candidate is not the nominee.

The enthusiasm factor is on the Republicans' side this cycle. That can be explained away in the "open" primaries, in which Democrats and independents may vote, but not in the "closed" primaries, in which only registered Republicans are allowed to participate. Enthusiasm is up consistently in all Republican contests, closed or open.

As a party, the Republicans have been crafting an economic message that appears to resonate with blue–collar white voters, especially those in the Rust Belt (who blame trade agreements for the loss of their jobs) but really across the country. That has the potential to put several states in play that have been voting for Democrats for the last couple of decades. The selection of a Midwestern running mate could have some influence on this, too.

(It is a theory of mine that, while the presence of a Midwestern running mate didn't put Mitt Romney over the top in 2012, it may have influenced the outcome in unacknowledged ways. Obama's share of the popular vote dropped nearly 2 percentage points and his electoral vote tally dropped by 33 between his election in 2008 and his re–election in 2012. Mind you, this was with an incumbent president seeking re–election, which is usually an insurmountable headwind for the challenger. Obama was the first incumbent in nearly a century to be re–elected with fewer electoral votes than he received in his initial election.)

The counterargument to this is that Democrats will benefit from the minority vote. It's hard to imagine any Republican ever achieving Dwight Eisenhower's level of support from minority voters, but that was a couple of generations ago. In the last 50 years or so, Republican nominees have seldom managed to win one–tenth of black votes, and that is the largest minority voting bloc in America. In spite of their growing numbers, Hispanics don't exert much electoral influence because so few vote.

Just as it is hard to imagine a Republican duplicating Ike's appeal to the minority community, it is equally difficult to imagine a Republican doing as poorly among black voters as John McCain or Romney did against the first black presidential nominee. It almost seems as if this year's Republican nominee can't help but do better, even marginally, among blacks than they did.

As for the Hispanic vote, even if there is a sudden surge in participation, it is likely to occur mostly in states where Democrats have an advantage (if you subscribe to the theory that those states are already in the bag) — primarily California and New Mexico. Many people will mention Nevada and Colorado as well, and those states do have sizable Hispanic populations, but it's a mistake to label them as dependably Democratic.

Nevada has been more of a bellwether, voting with the winner in every election since 1980 (and every election but two since 1904).

Colorado has been more inclined to support Republicans even when they lose nationally. True, Colorado supported Barack Obama twice, but before that Colorado voted for Democrats twice in the 14 previous elections — for Bill Clinton in 1992 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Colorado voted for Bob Dole over Clinton in 1996, for Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter in 1976 and for Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Republicans with an eye to the long term are sure to recognize the fact that their party must be perceived as much more receptive to minority participation in the years ahead, but right now there probably aren't that many minority votes for Republicans to win or lose in states where those voters can make a difference. To win this election, pandering to minority groups won't be necessary.

Some folks point out the sizable Hispanic population in the state where I live — Texas. It's true that Hispanics make up a considerable segment of the Texas population, but Texas hasn't voted for a Democrat for president since narrowly voting for Carter 40 years ago. Obama lost Texas twice, both times by more than 1 million votes.

If Hispanics become more reliable at the polls, they could exert quite a bit of influence on Texas politics, but that is likely to happen incrementally. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders is going to win Texas this year.

---

---

And then there is the emerging issue of terrorism. Even before the attacks in Brussels earlier this week, polls were showing that a majority of Americans supported Trump's proposal of a temporary ban on Muslim immigrants. My guess is that support for that proposal has gone up this week.

Since World War II, when people have been afraid, they have turned to Republicans. Postwar Democrats have (pardon the pun) progressively been perceived as unable to protect Americans when they are faced with a deadly threat. Take the 9/11 attacks, for example. The party that doesn't hold the White House almost always loses ground in Congress in the midterm election, but Republicans bucked the historical trend and gained ground in the 2002 midterms in large part because of the voters' fears of terrorism a year after the Twin Towers came down.

How many more terrorist attacks will there be between now and November? Will any of them be on U.S. soil?

What form will those attacks take? Will they be like the anthrax attacks of 2001 — which, of course, were not related to Islamic terrorism, but the next ones certainly could be — or will they be more digital in nature, attacking our technological vulnerabilities?

What will the situation be in the days and weeks leading up to the election? Will the economy be better or worse?

The answers to those questions and others will give you a good idea who will show up at the polls in November — and who won't.

Terrorism and Politics

---

---

"Lawmakers burst into debate over gun control, philosophers analyzed the nature of violence, and the nation was described as grieving.

"Yet 'grief' suddenly seemed like a faintly obsolete word. Nor would 'shock,' 'rage,' 'dismay' do, either. Such anthropomorphic words have been, for generations, the most convenient shorthand of political observation, inviting writers to describe millions of people as if their emotions were fused by a single spasm of 'agony,' 'despair,' 'vengeance' or 'sorrow' — as if, indeed, they were one community. But it is impossible ever to describe a great nation as if it were a community — and, in 1968, the essence of the matter was that the old faith of Americans in themselves, as a community of communities, seemed to be dissolving."

Theodore H. White, 'The Making of the President 1968'

---

Donald Trump's meteoric rise in the polls — in defiance of all conventional wisdom — is clearly baffling to many people (although the latest poll from Iowa hints that Trump may finally have peaked). They don't know what it means. Is it racism? Is it fascism? Should we pass more laws that would have been totally ineffective in preventing the latest massacre?

I think it is fairly easy to see what is happening in this country today — in large part because I can remember what happened in this country many yesterdays ago — and I have formed a theory about it and the 2016 presidential campaign.

I am speaking of a time when the United States really appeared to be coming apart at the seams — 1968 — when political assassinations and violence in city streets were commonplace.

I was only a child at the time, and I didn't fully understand everything that I saw and heard, but I could comprehend a lot of it. I saw TV reports of riots in the streets of big cities. I saw protesters being beaten by police, and I saw protesters throwing rocks and bottles at the police in response. I saw reports of prominent Americans being assassinated.

I knew fear and chaos when I saw it, and I see the same thing happening now.

Don't get me wrong. There was unrest all over the world. There always is — somewhere. But not usually everywhere — and that is what seemed to be happening in 1968. I'm not saying that actually is what was happening. But it sure seemed like it.

And it was frightening.

---

---

You had a pretty good idea in those days which places were best to avoid. In the summer of '68, for example, you didn't want to be near the Democrats' convention hall in Chicago.

You could avoid the obvious places for protests — but those places aren't so obvious anymore. We've seen riots recently that occurred in unpredictable places. That kind of thing tends to make people feel unsafe, you know?

So do seemingly random attacks like the one in San Bernardino, Calif., less than two weeks ago.

Now, we all know that bad things can happen to any one of us at any time. That's life. And, eventually, life is going to end for us all. We may get sick or injured and never recover, or we may be in a fatal accident of some kind. Or any of 10,000 or so other potential causes of death. (The list is virtually endless.) I think most of us have accepted that. So we continue to drive our cars to restaurants and concerts and work, always with that reality tucked away in the backs of our minds.

We know that we will never get out of this world alive. We don't like to be reminded of it on a daily basis. And we don't expect death to come when we're shopping or eating — or participating in an office holiday party.

I think it was Woody Allen who said, "I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." If we're honest with ourselves, no matter what we think happens or doesn't happen when we stop breathing, that's how we feel, too.

Of course, the kind of spiritual leaders that we have historically had here in the West — ministers, priests, rabbis — remind us that we will die, but they do so as part of a long–term campaign for souls, not to encourage listeners to hasten the day when others' souls will be won or lost — for good. That image, fairly or not, is what many Americans see in their mind's eye when they think of mosques and Muslims.

I think Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are probably correct when they say that most Muslims are peaceful, but you can't ignore the fact that most of the recents terrorist acts, both here and overseas, have been committed by Muslims — and that causes fear. And when refugees are streaming across the border, it isn't possible to tell which ones can be trusted and which ones cannot.

I see 1968 and 2016 as being comparable. Then, as now, people felt unsafe, and they looked for a leader who would take a firm stand against what scared them. President Johnson left a vacuum in this regard, much as Barack Obama has left a vacuum; Hubert Humphrey was left holding the bag for the administration in '68, and he lost a close race to Richard Nixon — the only man in modern American history to win the presidency after having lost a previous presidential election — because the administration had repeatedly demonstrated that it didn't have a clue what to do.

And Nixon won with a third–party firebrand named George Wallace running. Wallace received more than 13% of the vote, with most of those votes coming from the South, and he carried five Southern states that almost certainly would have voted for Nixon if Wallace had not been in the race.

History tells us that the Republicans won five of the next six presidential elections — in large part because they won the battle for the hearts and minds of the voters on the issue of law and order.

I hear many Republicans fretting about Trump running as an independent if denied the GOP nomination. If that happens, the logic says, Hillary Clinton will be the beneficiary just as they allege that her husband was elected because Ross Perot got one–fifth of the popular vote in 1992. I don't think that is true. History shows that third–party candidacies, when they are most appealing to voters, tend to be a problem for whichever party is in power.

Exit–poll surveys in 1992 indicated that, if Perot had not run, Clinton and George H.W. Bush each would have picked up about 40% of his supporters, and the remaining 20% would not have voted at all. The numbers would fluctuate by state, of course, and it is fair to suggest that states where the race between Clinton and Bush was close could have swung the other way if Perot had not been on the ballot. But in the states where Clinton or Bush had decisive leads, it is unlikely that Perot's absence from the race would have meant much.

If the '92 exit polls are correct — and I have neither heard nor seen any evidence that would lead me to believe they are not — I suppose many Republicans believe Bush could have won that 20%, but I'm inclined to think those voters wouldn't have chosen from the major parties' nominees. They were drawn in to the process by Perot and most likely would have receded into the shadows from which they came if he had not been on the ballot. They weren't responsive to Bush or Clinton.

A dozen years before that, in 1980, there was talk right up until Election Day that Rep. John Anderson would siphon off enough votes from both President Jimmy Carter and former Gov. Ronald Reagan to force their race into the House of Representatives. Anderson had run against Reagan in the Republican primaries before deciding to mount a third–party campaign, and he was widely praised as an alternative to the major nominees. But the experts overestimated his influence on the campaign. Anderson won no states and received only 6.6% of the vote.

Perhaps Carter would have won most of Anderson's votes if Anderson had not run as a third–party candidate, but, outside the South, where Carter lost nearly every state but held Reagan under 50% in most, it hardly seems it would have mattered. Reagan won in a landslide.

The issue right now is not whether Trump would fracture the party and allow Hillary Clinton to win next year. The issue for voters is who makes them feel safe. Trump has been successful at that. If his Republican challengers want to be relevant in the 2016 campaign, they will need to address it, too.

Because 2016, like 1968, is going to be about an increasingly insecure nation and how it deals with its greatest fear.

A Rare Event

---

---

Tonight at 7 (Central) we will witness something that has been a rare event in this presidency — an address to the nation from the Oval Office.

People can — and do — call Barack Obama many things, but one thing no one could call him is camera shy. He seldom hesitates to say what is on his mind (which is the very definition of loose cannon, is it not? But I digress ...) yet, in fact, this will be only the third time in nearly seven full years as president that he has spoken to the American people from the Oval Office.

It took an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to prompt the first one. The second was a victory lap after the short–lived departure of troops from Iraq — and now it is (presumably) to clarify his position on ISIS, a fully functioning and extremely threatening terrorist group that Obama has famously dismissed as "the jayvee team" and, more recently, as being "contained."

Both assessments have been demonstrably false.

Presidential addresses from the Oval Office were commonplace for every president I can remember prior to Obama — and I'm not speaking of the weekly five–minute radio addresses that are usually delivered from the Oval Office. An Oval Office speech was usually (but not always) a good indication that the subject was an important one and every American needed to hear what the president had to say about it. That wasn't always true, of course. Presidents from both parties misused the bully pulpit, and because the forum has been abused in the past, I can appreciate the notion that an Oval Office address should be reserved for truly significant moments and issues.

I really don't know if that is how Obama feels about it, but, whether it is or is not, the fact remains that, under Obama, the pendulum has swung much too far in the other direction. The American people have been left in the dark on too many important issues for too long. They are entitled to better than that from their leaders.

Obama's speech, of course, comes days after the horrific attack in San Bernardino, Calif., that killed 14. In the hours after that attack, Obama hemmed and hawed when asked whether it was terrorism even though his own FBI, which has followed the president's lead on terrorism in the past and hesitated to label such acts, was calling it terrorism within hours.

Breitbart.com says, "This is the first sign that the Obama White House is preparing to address the threat of terrorism seriously after appearing reluctant to define the attack in California as terrorism."

That's pretty generous. And, you must admit, it is remarkably fair, a virtual acceptance that White House spokesman Josh Earnest was correct when he said that, in addition to speaking about the shooting itself, "[t]he president will also discuss the broader threat of terrorism, including the nature of the threat, how it has evolved and how we will defeat it."

I already know about the nature of the threat — and, whether they will admit it or not, I think most Americans do, too — and how it has evolved. I need no presidential lectures on those.

Personally, I'm still waiting to hear the president call this what it is — Islamic terrorism. These acts are being carried out by Islamic extremists who have interpreted the Qur'an as permission from God to kill all who disagree with them. The president has yet to acknowledge this. He and Hillary Clinton insist on reminding us that Islam is a peaceful religion, and the United States is not at war with Islam.

That's a straw man.

No one (to my knowledge) has suggested that this is a religious war. It is a war against extremists who are hell–bent on killing others. They clearly don't care about the religious beliefs of their victims. Other Muslims have been killed in their attacks as well as Christians and Jews.

The fact that these extremists, these murderers all claim to be Muslims is an identifying trait. Some people will say that is profiling, and I suppose it is, but it is also a fact that cannot be ignored. It may be a regrettable fact of modern life that we must take a closer look at Muslims who try to enter this country. That doesn't necessarily mean that Muslims who live here are being or will be denied their right to freedom of religion.

Well, I guess I can't make a blanket assertion like that. Most assuredly, there will always be bigots for whom unpleasant but necessary restrictions on certain groups are nice little byproducts.

But that is one of the things about which we need to have a national — and rational — conversation. We may also need to talk about how and whether to monitor and have legal provisions for shutting down mosques or any similar facility where violence is encouraged.

I know. This kind of thing smacks of the Nuremburg Laws, doesn't it? But the key difference, it seems to me, is that the Jews of Germany and Europe were not hijacking airplanes, attacking diners in restaurants or shooting up Christmas parties.

To deal with a modern threat it is necessary for us to label the enemy.

Identifying the enemy is the first step in defeating it. Once Obama has done that, I will listen to what he has to say about defeating it.

Until then, I have no tolerance for useless drivel about closing gun show loopholes or issuing executive orders to make it even more difficult for Americans to arm themselves.

If someone is determined to kill — and the willingness, even eagerness, of these animals to kill themselves and leave orphaned children, even infants, behind in the process is pretty good evidence of just how determined they are — whatever is available will do. These terrorists do not need guns to kill. They share information about making bombs, and they are constantly experimenting with new ways to conceal explosives. They have used knives in the past when no other means for killing were available. No doubt they would resort to throwing rocks if that was all they had.

No, they don't need guns to kill, but they won't let a minor annoyance like a gun control law keep them from getting guns if they need them.

Instead of talking about closing gun show loopholes, we should be talking about closing the other loopholes that made the San Bernardino shootings possible. There is an enormous loophole along this country's borders. If Obama doesn't think there are terrorist "sleeper cells" all across this country whose members have practically waltzed across the border, he is truly living in a fantasy world.

Everyone wants to be fair on immigration. No one wants to deny the hope of citizenship to those who truly wish to come to America and co–exist with all kinds of people. But it only makes sense to have a process in place that safeguards the people who are already here from immigrants who, knowingly or unknowingly, threaten their safety.

In the Ellis Island days, that usually meant temporarily quarantining people who might have been exposed to a deadly disease. Today quarantining immigrants would be done with the intention of giving authorities enough time to do background checks.

And I'm not talking about the cursory background checks that have been conducted — if time and resources permitted them to be conducted at all — up to this point.

The time has long since past when we could keep terrorist cells out of this country or quarantine enough of the suspicious immigrants long enough for background checks to weed out the most dangerous ones.

For tonight's Oval Office address, as rare as they have been in Obama's tenure, to have any historical meaning, it must spark a serious discussion about the most effective way to keep the American people safe.

That doesn't mean belittling those who have dedicated their lives to being first responders when crisis strikes.

That doesn't mean letting political correctness overrule common sense.

It means being a leader. Under this president, who almost always leads from behind, being a true leader has been even more rare than Oval Office addresses.

Paris Is in the Crosshairs, But the Target Is Western Civilization

---

---

I suppose I hoped that the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo nearly a year ago would have made it too clear to be misunderstood or ignored. Yet the eyes of the world are drawn once again to Paris, the scene of yesterday's horrific series of coordinated terrorist attacks — because those who should have learned from that earlier experience did not.

A virtual anarchist's cookbook of tactics was on display as the terrorists struck at any place people tend to gather on an evening in Paris, one of the largest cities in the world. For centuries, Paris has been known the world over for its culture, its arts, its music, and people have been drawn there to experience it. Technology did not bring culture to Paris. Instead, Paris' culture brought technology there — and, lately, not for good.

On Friday terrorists used bombs and guns at cafes, at a stadium where a soccer match was in progress, at a theater where a concert was taking place. Even though most of the perpetrators appear to be dead now, those attacks are sure to have at least a temporary chilling effect on Paris' cultural scene — not unlike the dramatic drop in air traffic in the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackings.

Appropriately, it is the deadliest attack on French soil since World War II — and I say "appropriately" because this is a war. Too many people have been unwilling to acknowledge that — and, I am sure, many are still reluctant to do so, perhaps because they feel it is a war against Islam, which it is not.

But Muslim extremists are waging a war on Western civilization. The target today is Paris — but the real target, the objective, is the overthrow of Western civilization, and that will mean that the war, inevitably, will be waged on our soil. We did not seek this war any more than we sought a war with Japan in the 1940s, but Pearl Harbor dragged us into the conflict.

Wars are regrettable, but sometimes they are necessary to preserve a way of life.

But, at long last, we must acknowledge the fact that this war is not a conventional war. Just because there hasn't been a major attack like the one more than 14 years ago — with a high body count and lots of mayhem — doesn't mean the war is over. The terrorists are patient — and they're smart the way that criminals are always smart. They apply logic to their objectives. It was why in 2001 they selected those jets that had enough fuel for a coast–to–coast trip — they wanted plenty of jet fuel to cause maximum damage when the planes crashed into buildings — and why they chose weekdays instead of weekends to carry out their plots. They knew there would be fewer people on board to resist.

The attacks in Paris were well coordinated and indicate extensive planning. Why did they pick yesterday to carry them out? Was it in response to the United States' drone attack that killed Jihadi John? Or was it planned ahead of time, and the timing was a happy coincidence for the terrorists?

I'm pretty sure it wasn't because yesterday was Friday the 13th, but I guess you never know ...

I sympathize with the reluctance of many to see the United States engaged in a war. The Iraq/Afghanistan experience left a bad taste in many people's mouths, and it is an experience no one wishes to repeat. (Afghanistan, of course, was targeted because the terrorist attack was planned there. Iraq was different. It was a war of choice and could have been avoided. But that is a discussion for another time.)

In case you haven't noticed yet, life affords no one the luxury of controlling events. The United States has always desired peace, but outside influences sometimes force us to go to war (OK, one time it was due to inside influences). Those wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began as responses to the 9–11 attacks — well, Iraq got piggybacked in because of the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction — and they were very popular at first. They became much less popular as they dragged on.

True, the perps in these terrorist attacks are always Muslims, but this is a war with the extremists, not mainstream Islam. Those who call this what it is are not calling for an FDR–like roundup and segregation of all who fit a general description. Those who call this what it is are being realists. Does that sound like profiling to you? Well, if it does, you must remember that profiling, when correctly applied, serves a useful purpose — if, for example, there has been a series of break–ins somewhere, and witnesses report that the apparent perps were in a certain age group and appeared to be in a particular racial group, authorities won't squander valuable time interrogating people who do not fit the description — but it can be abused. There is no doubt about that. There must be adequate, diligent oversight to prevent abuse.

The idea behind profiling is a good one — to provide useful information that can enable authorities to resolve criminal cases faster. The implementation needs to be fine–tuned.

In France today, there is no massive manhunt as there was in January. My understanding is that all the attackers are now dead. But if any were alive, it would be good for authorities to have a physical description of them and/or their colleagues.

As I write this, the death toll has fluctuated. CNN reported 128 casualties last night, and ABC News reports 127 casualties this morning. I don't know the actual number — maybe no one does — but many, many more are injured, some critically, and the death toll is sure to rise in the coming days.

The latest figure is 129 — from The Telegraph. As I say, though, that number will surely rise.

French President François Hollande — who was attending that soccer match — calls it what it is. He said it was an "act of war."

It seems to be a little late to be reaching that conclusion — but better late than never, I suppose.

Rising From the Ashes of Oklahoma City

---

---

"The Oklahoma City bombing was simple technology, horribly used. The problem is not technology. The problem is the person or persons using it."

Rev. Billy Graham

---

It's hard for me to believe it has been 20 years since the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

I wrote about this back on the 15th anniversary, and I observed much the same thing then as I do now. It's hard to believe, probably even harder now. Maybe that's because it seems as if I have lived another lifetime since it happened.

There were many things going on in my life at that time — and other things that happened in the weeks and months that followed — that make my memory of the bombing something of a blur.

I was teaching journalism at the University of Oklahoma, about 30 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, when the bombing occurred. In fact, I was scheduled to be in the classroom less than half an hour after the bombing happened. My office was just across the hall from the student newspaper newsroom, and I had been doing some work in my office for about an hour or so. There were never very many students in the newsroom in the mornings — it was a daily paper, and the staffers worked in there in the late afternoons and into the evenings — but there were a few students in there that morning, and they had the TV on. I could hear the news reports — still sketchy — as I walked down the hall just before the start of my class.

I knew something had happened, but, like most of the people watching the news reports on the local TV stations at that time, no one really knew what it was. In those days, people didn't automatically think of terrorism when something unpleasant happened. Well, maybe some people did — there was a report that day of a man of Middle Eastern descent who had the misfortune of boarding a plane in Oklahoma City that morning and flying to Chicago, where authorities stopped and detained him after he got off the plane. There was some modest hysteria about that, but it was nothing, I am sure, compared to what it might have been if the Oklahoma City bombing had occurred maybe a decade later than it did.

In those more innocent times (by comparison), terrorism was one of many potential culprits; in fact, the early speculation that day was that a gas line had exploded. As far as most Americans were concerned in 1995, terrorism was still something that happened in the other hemisphere. I could be wrong, but I don't think that man had any idea what had happened when the agents descended upon him in Chicago. Fast forward a few years. If the bombing had occurred in 2005 instead of 1995, terrorism probably would have been the first — and, perhaps, only — suspect for many.

My class lasted for an hour, then I returned to my office to do some work before going home for lunch. While I was at home, I watched the news reports. Considerably more was known by that time. The gas line explosion theory had been ruled out by noon. It was now believed to have been the outcome of a deliberate act.

That afternoon, I had a writing lab. Before it started, some of my students approached me about letting them leave early so they could donate blood for the injured. That was the kind of thing I wanted to encourage so I said I would try to wrap things up earlier than usual to allow them to do that — and that is what I did.

---

---

By mid–afternoon that day, a suspect was in custody. His name was Timothy McVeigh. He was convicted in 1997 and executed in 2001. His accomplice, Terry Nichols, is serving several life sentences in a super maximum security prison in Colorado.

For them, the Oklahoma City bombing is a closed chapter, I suppose — but not so for those who must live with the consequences of their acts.

The most obvious victims, I imagine, are the ones who were injured that day, and many have been the subjects of followup articles in newspapers and magazines. The survivors have not all been eager to share their stories. Some chose to avoid the spotlight on what must be a very personal anniversary for them; others reluctantly went ahead with the interviews but insisted that they would not let what happened 20 years ago define them.

I have to admire that.

But, as I have often said in these last 20 years, I also admire the commendable work that was done by the student journalists with whom I worked at the University of Oklahoma at that time. Many of them grew up in Oklahoma City or one of the many nearby towns; they were touched by the bombing, too, but they persevered with their work as journalists.

The student newspaper had its staffers at the bombing site for the rest of what remained of that semester. At a time when nearly every other newspaper — professional or academic — was using articles, photos and graphics supplied by the wire services, the OU student newspaper relied on its reporters, photographers and graphics artists to produce all original material — material that was posted online at a time when many professional periodicals still did not have an online presence, let alone most college newspapers.

They put aside their personal feelings and covered the event with the professionalism it deserved. That accomplishment was even more impressive than you may realize. One of the staffers actually lost her father in the bombing.

But she, like the city, has risen from the ashes. She has gone on to pursue a career in broadcast journalism and has refused to let what happened to her family 20 years ago define her.

---

---

At the site of the bombing, a memorial now stands.

I haven't been there, but I have heard it is a serene place with a reflecting pool, a "gate of time" and a field of chairs symbolizing each life that was lost that day. The chairs representing the adults are a little larger than the ones representing the children who died. That is a nice, subtle touch.

Another interesting touch is the "survivor tree." It was part of the building's original landscaping and, somehow, it survived the bombing and the fires that followed. It still stands. I presume it will be mentioned during today's memorial service.

An Attack on Freedom

---

---

When I woke up this morning, I switched on my TV to get caught up on the news and was greeted by a reminder of something we should never again allow ourselves to forget.

It was the early reports of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly newspaper, in Paris that left 12 dead (so far) and nearly as many injured.

I won't go into details about Charlie Hebdo because those already have been reported by every journalist in the free world today.

Folks who are familiar with my blogs know that I am a journalist, a veteran of daily newspapers; this kind of thing cuts to the very core of things in which I believe — like freedom of the press and freedom of speech, both of which are threats to those who would impose a totalitarian system on others, as the terrorists seek to do. Satire is especially threatening to them because satirists hold nothing sacred and religious extremists hold nearly everything sacred — except for free speech.

What happened in Paris today was nothing less than an attack on freedom. It was an attack on every newsroom in the free world — and, as such, it was an attack on free speech.

The pillars of freedom.

It wasn't an attack on French newsrooms — or France — alone.

From what I have read and heard, the plot probably was carried out from a region near Paris that is primarily occupied by Muslims. If that is true, it is also probably true that the terrorists have allies in that area, like–minded individuals who helped them prepare for what was clearly a coordinated attack. How long were the ones who carried out the plot hiding in plain sight? How long will those who helped them hide in plain sight, perhaps to help carry out another such plot in the future?

Do you think this can't happen here? That the ocean that separates us also protects us? That is what they thought before World Wars I and II.

What proportion of the population in your city is Muslim? Most are probably peaceful, but a few may be radicals, keeping it hidden from view. I used to cover the police beat, and one thing I noticed was that, inevitably, when someone was convicted of a violent crime, the people who knew him when he was growing up would say, "He was always such a good boy." It was always a surprise to them that he would do something like that.

In spite of what the administration wants everyone to believe, we are still at war with supporters of radical Islam. We may have stopped, but they never will, and that's a problem for this president. It really shouldn't be, but it is.

Somewhere along the way, Barack Obama got the idea that a president has the power to live in a world of his choosing. Obama wants a world where those who are entrusted with protecting Americans cannot be given certain kinds of information about suspects because that amounts to profiling.

That's nonsense. Presidents cannot choose the circumstances in which they serve, only how they respond to those circumstances. It is their duty to protect their people from whatever threatens them — be it disease or violence.

Failure to protect a president's people is negligence, yet Barack Obama is hesitant to confront the threat of radical Islam. He would probably prefer that the more rational elements of Islam would crack down on these extremists. His problem: How do you persuade the moderates to take action?

It is appropriate that the 40th anniversary of "The Godfather Part II" came along a couple of weeks ago because it offers some instruction here.

I direct your attention to the scene early in the movie in which Fredo's wife was drunk and making a scene, and Michael sent one of his henchmen to Fredo to tell him "Take care of this or I have to."

I know that not all Muslims are radicals, that only a small percentage fit that description. I know that the teachings of Islam are peaceful, but all religions have their extremists, the ones who have twisted the teachings of their faith.

The president of the United States, in spite of his personal feelings, must tell the cooler heads in the Islamic world that they have to take care of this — or we will have to.

Because this is the kind of thing that will spread if it is not checked. If it can happen in Paris, France, in the middle of a work week, what is to keep it from happening in Washington, D.C., or New York or Los Angeles — or Wichita, Kansas?

Nothing.

Searching for a Missing Jet

---

---

The longer the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, missing now for more than a week, goes on, the more frantic and hysterical some people seem to be.

At least, that is what I gather from some of the theories they are putting forth.

I'll grant you that it is an intriguing mystery, but it is not a cause for panic.

I guess I owe my calm to my training as a journalist. When you work for newspapers, you learn quickly that very seldom (if ever) can you give your readers the whole story on something important the first time. It tends to dribble out over time, especially if you're dealing with people who are intent on keeping the truth hidden. Heck, it took Woodward and Bernstein nearly a year of writing about the Watergate break–in before the Senate started calling witnesses to testify before a special committee — and it was another year after that before the House began considering articles of impeachment.

Journalists have to keep a cool head — and keep their eyes on the prize. Just because the answer isn't obvious doesn't mean it can't be found. Journalists must be patient.

I'm not saying this jet went missing because of a criminal act, that it has been hijacked or anything like that — although there are some who have been saying that for several days now. It may well turn out to be a terrorist act, but, without any evidence, I find that assertion to be, at the very least, irresponsible.

After all, the idea behind terrorism is to make sure that the people you want to terrorize know what you have done. The plane has been missing for nearly two weeks, and no one has claimed responsibility for its disappearance or made any demands.

Some have suggested things that are even more dramatic and implausible — alien abduction, for example, or a meteor strike.

Courtney Love rejected the alien theory (but not the meteor theory), claiming that she had found the plane or, at least, she had found evidence of it — in an aerial photo of water in which she claimed she could see an oil slick. Rush Limbaugh suggested that the jet was shot down by a "hostile country."

Some of the theories that have been put forth are even more absurd. Few, though, are as absurd as the paranoid assertion that terrorists were behind the plane's disappearance.

So what did happen to it?

The most plausible explanation I have heard so far comes from Chris Goodfellow, an experienced pilot writing at Wired.com. He says he believes an electrical fire on board the plane led to the disappearance (and probable crash, either on land somewhere or in the sea, when the plane ran out of fuel).

My advice is this: Speculation won't accelerate the discovery of the plane or what is left of it (if, indeed, it is discovered), but as long as your attention is on the Eastern Hemisphere, you might want to pay closer attention to what is happening in Russia and the Ukraine.

What is happening there is sending signals to other potential hotspots, such as China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran ...

The Last Flight of Pan Am 103

---

---

When this day dawned 25 years ago, Americans really weren't thinking much about terrorism.

We were naive about what was happening in the rest of the world. We had been through the hostage crisis in Iran, but it ended with no loss of life — except for a few servicemen who died in an aborted rescue attempt — and we had gone through the next several years without any disruptions in our daily lives.

There were isolated instances of terrorism that involved some Americans, but they were few and relatively far between. In the 1980s, it had been easy for Americans to pretend that the world's problems were not our own.

That is ... it was easy until 25 years ago today when a Pan Am flight, en route from London to New York, was blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Lockerbie is a tiny town in southwest Scotland. It has existed for more than 1,000 years, but few people ever heard of it until Dec. 21, 1988 when debris from Pan Am Flight 103 rained down on it. Eleven residents of Lockerbie died along with the 259 people on board the flight. Americans accounted for more than two–thirds of the casualties.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi took responsibility for the bombing and paid compensation to the victims' families but denied ordering the attack.

In part because of that ambiguity, there have been a number of persistent questions about the bombing that have gained some traction with the public over the years. There are many who believe the whole story will never be known, and I am one of them.

---

---

After 25 years, what is known is relatively little, and both emotion and speculation have been rampant at times.

It has been fairly well established that a suitcase bomb detonated on the plane, sending it back to earth, and the record will show that a Libyan intelligence agent, Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, was tried and convicted in connection with it.

But that is about the extent of it.

Much like the Kennedy assassination 50 years ago, there were elements of the event that looked suspicious. Many of them may have been coincidental, but, after all the time that has passed, it seems unlikely that we will ever know the truth.

For example, one thing that has never been satisfactorily explained (as far as I am concerned, anyway) is the fact that there were at least four officials from the U.S. government who were on board the plane. According to unconfirmed rumors, there was actually a fifth official on the plane.

One of those officials was with the CIA. Another was with the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) — two others were Diplomatic Security Service agents acting as bodyguards.

Perhaps their presence on the plane was a coincidence, but it is easy to see how a conspiracy theory could come from it. There had been several confrontations between the U.S. Navy and Libya in the Gulf of Sidra (which Libya claimed as its territorial waters) during the 1980s. The Libyans avenged some incidents, but Gadhafi harbored a lingering resentment for what he saw as ongoing acts of aggression against Libya by the French and Americans.

Perhaps the bombing of Flight 103 was intended to avenge a perceived act of aggression.

Megrahi was the only person ever tried for the bombing, and he was given a compassionate release from prison in 2009 because he had terminal prostate cancer and was only expected to live for three months. The decision generated some controversy, which was revisited when Megrahi survived the prognosis by a couple of years.

Gadhafi died more than two years ago. Megrahi died in 2012. If they had anything more to tell us, they took it to their graves.

The mystery surrounding what happened to Flight 103 continues.

Getting It First vs. Getting It Right

---

---

The pursuit of the Boston Marathon bombers has been a great opportunity for journalism professors like myself to explore the emphasis in today's media on being first with a story — regardless of whether it is right.

When I was in journalism school, the emphasis was reversed. Getting it right was more important than reporting it first.

I don't mean to suggest that being first wasn't important. It certainly was. Always has been. But the difference is that we were told repeatedly that accuracy took priority. Publishing rumor, hearsay or something that was not independently verifiable was unacceptable.

That was something aspiring journalists learned from reading "All the President's Men." Woodward and Bernstein inspired a generation of young journalists with their coverage of an imploding presidency, but they insisted on having at least two sources for anything they wrote.

As a result, they were rarely wrong about anything. They were often impugned by their adversaries in the White House, but they were seldom wrong.

Far fewer sources apparently were required by CNN when it reported — erroneously — that a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings was in custody. This was more than 24 hours before the release of the photographs of the suspects by the FBI led to the death of one and the eventual apprehension of the other.

---

---

The audience bears a certain amount of responsibility for this atmosphere.

We live in a culture that not only desires but expects instant gratification. Nothing demands discipline anymore. We have hundreds of TV stations from which to choose — and the ability to record multiple programs for viewing at our convenience. We have numerous options for quick, filling (and mostly absent any nutritional value) food to eat and pills to take to fall asleep at night.

If we experience pain, we can get pain relievers over the counter that promise instant relief. Landline phones are disappearing; everyone has his or her own personal phone now — along with his or her personal water bottle in case of a sudden attack of thirst.

And people in the 21st century know that they can go to multiple web sites — in addition to the traditional stand–bys, the broadcast and print media — for news and information. There is no shortage of sources, and each one seems eager to go with any story it has — even if that story is wrong.

Being first is what counts with the audience.

And the pressure to be first guides the often ill–advised actions of media outlets.

Being right is what should matter to all journalists

When I was a journalism student — and then a young journalist — I knew I was up against competition for the readers' time and attention. Competition is part of the business, just like it is part of any other business. And scooping the competition is definitely not a new concept. If I could scoop my competition, that was great. But my professors and editors insisted on accuracy.

I believed in it then, and I still believe in it. Double checking isn't just a good idea for insurance companies eager to attract customers with discounts, you know. It's a good idea for journalists, too, and it used to be underscored with the words Libel Manual emblazoned on the cover of the AP Stylebook — the journalist's bible.

Now, libel is treated almost like an afterthought by the AP — but I know it isn't. It couldn't be. Libel is still a significant portion of media law, and any media outlet that acts as if it isn't is playing with fire. At the very least, it is tempting fate.

E.J. Dionne laments, in the Washington Post, this rush to judgment in the media. And that judgment usually supports whatever the journalist is predisposed to believe.

There is every bit as much partisan rushing to judgment on the left as there is on the right.

In Boston, Dionne observes, "there was an immediate divide between those who were sure the attack was a form of Islamic terrorism and those just as convinced that it was organized by domestic, right–wing extremists. ... [A]bsolutely no one imagined what turned out to be the case: that two young immigrants with Chechen backgrounds would be held responsible for unleashing the violence."

This is not what I believe journalism is about. Journalists report the news. They are not cheerleaders for one side or the other. They report the facts, even if the facts contradict their personal beliefs, and allow the readers to reach their own conclusions.

OK, a few journalists are cheerleaders. They write opinion columns — and, in most cases, those columns are labeled as opinion.

If it isn't clear whether an article in a newspaper is a news report or an opinion column, I would not recommend that you continue reading that publication.

---

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

---

There was a time when I would recommend to people that they turn to CNN for reliable news coverage.

I would have made that recommendation as recently as four years ago, when CNN was the only news outlet (as far as I know) that didn't jump to conclusions based on the observations of unauthorized personnel — and waited until someone who was authorized to do so confirmed that Michael Jackson had died.

That decision prevented CNN from being first; CNN, however, retained its integrity.

But, as the attached clips so clearly show, CNN yielded to the dark side in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings and joined (nay, led) the rush to judgment. There were lesser news outlets that did what CNN should have been doing, what CNN used to do — what all media outlets should have done — the responsible thing.

Next time, undoubtedly, it will be someone else who does the right thing. And, rest assured, there will be a next time.

Responsible journalists do not report rumor, innuendo and hearsay. They do not take their lead from "canine dogs" barking in the darkness or what other outlets may be doing.

They do their job. They report the news.

When Jon Stewart makes you the recipient of his razor–sharp witticisms twice in a week's time, your credibility is pretty much shot.

Blood in Boston

---

---

I used to work as a sports copy editor, and, in those days, you never saw an article from the Boston Marathon on the front page of the newspaper.

Times have changed. I can guarantee that the Boston Marathon will be on the front page of every newspaper tomorrow, but that has nothing to do with the race.

It has everything to do with the explosions that occurred near the finish line this afternoon.

Initially, it was thought there had been three explosions, but, as I write this, it appears that the third event — a fire or explosion at the nearby JFK library — was a bizarre irony.

When I heard that, I immediately thought of the hijackings of 2001 — and how I heard of planes crashing into the World Trade Center ... and then the Pentagon. Perhaps it was due to the fact that my office did not have a television, but there was a lot of confusion in my workplace that day — and a lot of misinformation floating around, even from people who had been in contact with friends and relatives who were watching things unfold on TV.

There is always some confusion around an event like this, and, sadly, I have become well acquainted with them. I was living a short distance from Oklahoma City when the federal building there was bombed (the 18th anniversary of that event will be this Friday, by the way); it is safe to say that my exposure to that event was more intense than it was for most.

And I, like most Americans, remember the confusion that was part of the developing story on 9–11. A few years later, I watched, transfixed, as the news coverage of the series of bombings in London flooded the airwaves.

The only things that seem clear are that at least three people are dead tonight, more than 100 are injured (some have lost limbs), and no one has claimed responsibility.

The investigators may already have an idea who was responsible, but they are keeping their cards hidden — as good investigators do.

In the days ahead, I expect many of the pressing questions to be answered — perhaps not always to everyone's satisfaction but answered, nonetheless.

There were people from all over the world in Boston today; consequently, I expect to hear eventually of injured — possibly even deceased — people from several countries.

There may even be things about this case that will surprise me.

Actually, the only thing that I am sure of — at least, as sure as anyone can be at this point — is that this was a coordinated, organized attack that almost certainly involved more than one person. I don't know if it was carried out by a domestic or foreign group. I suppose that is a detail we will learn in due course.

For now, I am willing to let the investigators do their work — which, I suppose, is an easy thing for me to do, considering that I am about 1,500 miles away and I won't have to put up with the inconvenience that many Bostonians will as they try to go about their daily business.

But investigators don't get to choose where a crime is committed. They can only investigate the scene of a crime, wherever that scene happens to be. This seems likely to be a difficult scene to process.

I wish them all the best in investigating this crime. I hope they bring those responsible to justice.

And I hope that we learn whatever we need to learn from this event to keep another one from happening.

But I am doubtful that will happen.

I am doubtful because, as is abundantly clear in the debate over guns, we tend to treat only the symptoms and not the disease.

The symptoms are the weapons that are used to kill and maim people.

The disease is whatever prompts one human being (or a group of human beings) to deliberately hurt or kill other human beings.

People who are bent on destruction will do it with whatever weapon is available to them. They will use guns — or knives, as we saw at the school in Houston last week — or explosive devices, as we saw in Boston today.

Until we are ready to face that problem with the vigor with which we attack inanimate objects, we will not rid our land of this epidemic of violence.