Dispatches from the Paranoid Left

“Axelrod: Obama Thinks Boston Bombings Could Be Related to ‘Tax Day,'” as spotted by Daniel Halper of the Weekly Standard:

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In explaining why President Obama didn’t call the Boston bombings a “terrorist attack,” former adviser David Axelrod said [on MSNBC, of couse — Ed], “I’m sure what was going through the president’s mind is — we really don’t know who did this — it was tax day.”

“The word has taken on a different meaning since 9/11,” Axelrod said of the phrase “terrorist attack.”

“You use those words and it means something very specific in people’s mind. And I’m sure what was going through the president’s mind is — we really don’t know who did this — it was tax day. Was it someone who was pro–you know, you just don’t know. And so I think his attitude is, let’s not put any inference into this, let’s just make clear that we’re going to get the people responsible.”

I thought most plays opened in Boston to work out the kinks before they came to Broadway. This time around though, Axelrod’s performance is the roadtrip version of a Mike Bloomberg production from May of 2010, after the Time Square bomber was foiled before his attack. He was later identified as Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistan Taliban-trained terrorist; but not before this infamous moment featuring Mayor Mike and Katie Couric, then still with CBS:

KATIE COURIC: Law enforcement officials don’t know who left the Nissan Pathfinder behind, but, at this point, the mayor believes the suspect acted alone.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that, somebody-

COURIC TO BLOOMBERG: A home-grown?

BLOOMBERG: Home-grown, maybe a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.

In other words, in both cases, we don’t know yet who did it, but our first impulse is to shame our ideological enemies on the right. At Big Journalism, John Nolte runs down his Top Five list of the “Media’s History of Falsely Blaming the Right for Mass-Murder.”

John’s post is actually a Top Six list, after an update. But depending upon how far back you wanted to go, it looks like you’re going to need a bigger blog.