No boom so no room?

The old news maxim regarding front page stories used to be "If it bleeds it leads."

Apparently the New York Times is a staunch adherent to that practice since it didn't think a foiled plot to DESTROY KENNEDY AIRPORT! and half of Queens merited much of a mention. No explosion? (Best Soup Nazi voice here) No front page for you!

Why does the mainstream media--especially the Times--constantly downplay efforts to inflict massive harm to our country? This is one of the most bizarre things I have ever observed. Usually the media falls all over itself to blow things out of proportion and scare people to death (see Alar, Y2K, Global Warming, etc.).

So why aren't they playing this chilling discovery up for everything it is worth? I'll tell you why: to the Times, there is something far worse than terrorists blowing us to bits. It's called racial profiling.

Does anybody remember the guy who shot six people at LAX less than a year after 9/11? They couldn't tell us soon enough that the incident had nothing to do with terrorism.

Of course the overwhelming clues led to a terrorist connection, but it took nine months for the FBI to admit this and by then nobody--including the media--was paying attention.

I don't have time to research and catalog the rest of the occurrences, but please feel free to list your own if you comment on this post. In brief, there seems to be a pattern to the news reporting:

*Immediately quote somebody as saying that there is no link to Al Qaida.

*Avoid at all costs mentioning that the perpetrators are Muslim.

*If the suspects are American converts to Islam, always use their given names and hide their Muslim name until bloggers find out the truth (see Richard Reeves, the shoe bomber).

*If none of the above is feasible because the connections are too obvious, make sure the story doesn't have much shelf life (Fort Dix plot). Get it out there and move on to something really important like Paris Hilton.

Yes, it seems that one thing that the media can't stomach is Americans being suspicious of people who might want to blow them up. How intolerant of us!

A nod to Laura over at Laura's Miscellaneous Musings for the info on the Times snub of the Kennedy Airport plot (the link in the headline).