Tackling the tough topics! (Washington Post)
"Hot-button issue two: The Marathon Bombing.
There is nothing even faintly amusing about this dreadful, tragic, sickening event, is there?
Of course not, at least not until a little more time passes, a more
decent interval that now, when wags will start to point out that these
guys were the Keystone Kommandos. The Dufus Desperadoes.
The litany of their boneheadedness has been spooling out in various
stories, but when compiled together, it is simply jaw-dropping just how
inept the brothers Tsarnaev were.
Consider:
This all happened at the finish line of The Boston Marathon, one of
the more robustly photographed and videotaped sporting events all year. Police cameras are ubiquitous. The precise location of the bombs were immediately apparent from their blast radii. It
did not take a forensic genius to foresee that it would be very easy to
focus on continuous video of those two spots and watch for people who
arrived with a container and left without it, at some point shortly
before the blasts. In fact, that is exactly what the police did, first thing. Despite this evident fact, the brothers Tsarnaev did not take any pains to disguise themselves.
They could have. This was the Boston Marathon. It’s got some funk. There are costumes. There was a giant, goofy blue m&m mascot figurine right at the site of the first blast.
There were some people in silly outfits, as there often are at large, joyous public events. People were literally wrapped in flags. The
brothers Tsarnaev could have arrived in full clown gear, or Gothed up,
or face-painted and flag-tattoed and nobody would have given them a
second glance; if anything, they would have seemed particularly
harmless, and afterwards, their photos would be of no use to anyone.
But no, they arrived figuratively naked. Dzhokhar (correctly pronounced “Joker,” by the way) obligingly swiveled the bill of his cap out of his eyes. They arrived as a pair, for more easy ID and connection.
Boom.
For two days afterward, they stayed put. They had at least a little time to get out of town, but they didn’t. Why? Several
reasons, the first apparently being that they idiotically didn’t think
they’d be caught; also, they didn’t have any money; also, their car was in the shop! THEIR CAR WAS IN THE SHOP! That
was the sophistication of their escape plan: There wasn’t one. It was
as though they decided to bomb The Boston Marathon on a whim, as you
might go out for a late-night bowl of chowder."
Gene also comments that it may be very shrewd of Jason Collins to come out, given his current job situation being up in the air/circling the drain-ish. Alexandra Petri has a good response to it in her chat:
"Look, my basic attitude towards this is that of watching someone
climb a tree to rescue a kitten. "He is just rescuing the kitten for the
good publicity," people mutter at the base of the tree.
"Kitten-rescuers always get on the news." But when you're in the tree
trying to grab a terrified furball, you're not on the news. It's just
you and the tree and the kitten. And when you succeed, whether you're on
the news or not, there's one less kitten stuck in a tree.
This isn't a precise analogy, because you don't have to walk around
with the kitten afterwards and deal with your coworkers and live with
the daily consequences once the bright lights die down; it's a
one-and-done. Do people who do courageous things get good publicity?
Yes. Is that why they do them? Even if it is, hey, there's a kitten
who's much happier now than before."
Best Internet Variety Show (and Good Luck Getting Anything Done, Ever) in 2005! 
