From today's Boston Herald......
Here is what we know thus far:
The cops have photos of one of the suspects, or two.
The suspect(s) may be either “dark-skinned” (CNN) or “white” (CBS).
They were carrying backpacks, or maybe bags.
The backpacks, or bags, were black, unless they were blue.
The bombs were detonated by control boards, unless it was cellphones, unless it was egg timers.
Yesterday’s press conference was supposed to take place at 5, until it was supposed to take place at 8, until it was canceled.
The media descended on the federal courthouse on Northern Avenue because the suspect was in custody — no, actually it was because a bomb threat had been phoned in.
Yesterday was not a day in which the local and national media covered themselves with glory. It reminded me of my days as a college-boy rewrite man in the Hearst empire, taking dictation from the old-time Hearst legmen. Often they were wrong, never were they in doubt.
I don’t particularly want to point fingers here, if only because I got the same bad information. My source said he was getting it from “the White House.”
But this is the way it’s been from the beginning. Like everybody, I hope the cops are closing in, but over the past 48 hours there seems to have been a real epidemic of bureaucratic CYA around here.
The first outbreak was observed Monday, when Police Commissioner Ed Davis assured the press it was “not true” that a Saudi national was a suspect, er, person of interest.
Three hours later, the Boston cops raided the Revere apartment of the Saudi national who was not a “person of interest.”
It was reported that in Revere, bomb-sniffing dogs had either had several “hits,” or hadn’t.
And by the way, am I the only one wondering what has become of the state secretary of public safety, Andrea Cabral? Is she “fanning out” across the city? Even Lt. Gov. Tim “Crash” Murray briefly emerged from hiding Tuesday, his eyes nervously darting across the Westin Hotel meeting room, trying to spot anyone who might be advancing on him with a subpoena.
Gov. Deval Patrick has also been a source of some confusion in these chaotic hours. With zero evidence that anyone has been engaging in any ethnic profiling, he sternly lectured the bitter clingers Tuesday against any … ethnic profiling.
Then he said, “We’re all in this together.”
Not really, Deval. There are at least one, maybe two people who blew up a bunch of us with pressure cookers triggered by control panels, cellphones or egg timers. No, we are not all in it together.
