In any case, I just got totally drive crazy by the media coverage of the last few days. It seemed like a competition between the networks: who can come up with the most far-fetched psychological profile. In fact Connie on CNN last night hit a new low when she asked Mohammed's cousin if he he could picture his cousin being the sniper, in other words: "Can you picture your cousin shooting 13 people and killing 10?". What's the answer supposed to be? "Yeah, I always knew my cousin was a dangerous killer. I guess I should have called the FBI a couple weeks ago. Maybe they should arrest me too for not letting them know he was a killer." Come on Connie, take a vacation, and a long one please. And as far as the rest of the media is concerned, well, we should establish a few Journalistic Awards for the Coverage of the Sniper Attacks. Here are the suggested categories: 1. The Most Moronic Question at a press conference, 2. The Least Breaking News Breaking News, 3. The Most Far-Fetched Psychological Profile and 4. The Most Frustrated Ex-Cop Turned Serial Killer Expert.
And remember, the media has been as critical of the police and their handling of the investigation as I am of the media and their coverage of the investigation. In fact, the media - AND SOME ON THIS THREAD - are dead wrong to critize Moose and his fellow cops turned TV stars.
It ain't too many cooks spoiling the broth in this particular part of the planet; it's too many armchair critics.
It is telling that when Senator John McCain yesterday leapt into the roiling fray to demand that Montgomery County Police Chief Charles A. Moose be replaced as the head of the joint task force hunting the Beltway Sniper, he made his announcement on a CNN daytime talk show.
Thus did Senator McCain join a distinguished crop of TV experts, radio show shrinks, outright neurotics, cranks, hired-gun profilers, bitter ex-cops and editorial writers here now variously wringing their dainty hands about everything from the looming trauma of a cancelled Halloween to Chief Moose's allegedly inadequate communication skills.
This man is in fact wildly impressive, as are the colleagues who regularly appear on the podium here with him -- especially Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Special Agent in Charge, Mike Bouchard.
It is not every cop who can puncture a question, as Chief Moose did the other day, "Sir, I don't see the nexus there."
And, as they like to say at that other national newspaper in Canada, perspective really is everything.
As he so often does, Chief Moose got it right a few days ago when, during one of the killer's unpredictable and self-imposed lulls, he remarked that any day without more of this violence is a good one.
That, as Martha Stewart, the beleaguered doyenne of the American household, is wont to say -- while fashioning a lace doily from, say, stray hair and the common debris one might find in one's bathtub -- is a good thing.
No one else was shot by the sniper in these parts yesterday. No one else died. No one else had their vital organs shot into bits by a rifle blast. No freshly orphaned child appeared on the scene. There was no victim No. 14 at this writing. That is indeed a good thing.
It is also rather what matters -- not that people have the willies; not that the forthcoming elections may have to be held here, as in some crackpot dictatorship, under the watchful presence of the National Guard, and certainly not, as some twit demanded to know at a recent news conference, with the latest shooting victim, bus driver Conrad Johnson, not yet cold on his hospital gurney, "Has bus service been disrupted?"
Chief Moose allowed, through clenched teeth, that since Mr. Johnson had been driving a Ride-On bus and was now dead, and since there was a Metrobus parked behind him when he was shot, he could not guarantee that there was absolutely no disruption at all to bus service, but that in the main, it continued uninterrupted.
The miracle is not that the sniper continues to be at liberty -- he has all the cards, after all, and roams a country that is preposterously open and mobile and where, unlike Canada, there are freeways around every corner -- but rather that Chief Moose does not reach periodically into the vast media throng assembled before him each day, drag out one or another of his questioners and throttle him.
Yesterday, for instance, the moronic question-of-the-day came from the fellow who demanded to know why Chief Moose, in his carefully crafted messages delivered to the sniper through the press, was being so courteous and respectful. "Well sir," said the Chief, "my parents prefer if I am a gentleman at all times. Hopefully I have been courteous and respectful to you, and no one has asked why. It just seems to be the right thing to do." As the room -- well all right, it is not a room, but a little canopy set up in front of the police building under which some of the 1,000 accredited members of the press daily jostle and bicker -- roared with laughter, I thought, "Attaboy, Chief."
The truth is that there is probably no one in the greater Washington region with more natural loathing for the sniper than Chief Moose, nor anyone who would more like to have a few private minutes alone with him.
Not only is the Chief at the very least the titular head of an unwieldy multi-jurisdictional task force -- involving two federal agencies, three state agencies, the Secret Service and police representatives from each of the seven counties where the sniper has struck -- but also it is on his home turf, in Montgomery County, that the sniper has killed the greatest number of people (seven of the 10 dead), where he appears to move with the greatest comfort and where he returned two days ago to strike again.
It was also the Chief who had to come before the cameras this week and make the humiliating admission that he is utterly helpless to protect the very citizens he is sworn to protect -- anathema for any law enforcement officer, let alone one with the enormous pride of this fierce man. When he said, "We have not been able to assure that anyone, any age, any gender, any race, we have not been able to assure anyone their safety, with regards to this situation," it was surely profoundly painful. He and his family and friends live here, too, and are as vulnerable as anyone else.
But the other reason for Chief Moose's politeness toward the sniper is that the task force is dealing with a person, or people, who may be easily provoked to kill again -- and who may kill again regardless of how nicely he is addressed -- and that he can afford to take no chances.
Indeed, it probably would be a risky step to replace the Chief as the public face of the task force now: Like it or not, the people who beg for his head may be stuck with him.
It would appear that it may be Chief Moose himself who is actually dealing with the sniper, who has left at least two confirmed messages for police (a Tarot card, the one representing Death, at the scene where he shot and wounded a 13-year-old boy on Oct. 7, and a reportedly lengthy note, left behind after he wounded a 37-year-old man in the abdomen near Ashland, Va., last Saturday night, in which he pledged that "Your children are not safe anywhere at any time") and has phoned them directly at least once.
When the Chief was asked about this yesterday, he paused and said, "Well sir, that's quite an involved question ... but it does put me in a position I struggle with," and then declined to say any more.
Given his readiness to flatly refuse comment -- when he characterizes a response as inappropriate or harmful to the investigation -- a dozen times at these daily conferences, the answer may hint that he and the killer have developed a relationship of sorts. Chief Moose can in good conscience decline to answer questions he deems dangerous, but lying would hardly sit well with him; he fairly bristles with integrity. Thus the struggle -- his desire to be honest versus the need to protect the case -- to which he briefly alluded.
That he and the sniper have established a dialogue would make sense: Since the first shootings happened on his watch, it was his strong-featured face that was first widely shown on the national airwaves. It would be surprising if the killer has not demanded to deal with him.
The collective demeanour of the Chief, Agent Bouchard and Executive Duncan, in fact, provides the best measure of how Americans are managing to live in this new state of crisis, now in its fourth week. These men bring a sense of reasoned calm to most everything they touch, and through their guarded remarks, it is possible to get a glimpse of the difficult business properly going on behind closed doors.
Chief Moose has repeatedly described the discussions that lead to the task force's decisions -- what to tell the public and how to cast it -- as "emotional" and "powerful." Special Agent Bouchard yesterday said, "We think long and hard about every decision we make and everything we say here. We struggle about everything we say and when we release it and what we release and how we say it."
The Chief himself yesterday, faced again with repeated questions about his handling of the probe, gave two answers that illuminate the stuff of which he is made.
To one, about parents angry that the sniper's general threat against children was not immediately made public, he said, "Ma'am, I cannot respond to anger because I've not felt that anger from anyone. That would be inappropriate. This is very emotional and people will interpret this in different ways and I've known that."
To another, about his difficult and fluid relationship with reporters, he said, "We all know the press has a role. That is one of the great reasons to live in this country."
He is the embodiment of grace under pressure. It's more than you can say for Senator McCain, prowling the CNN Talkback Live audience yesterday afternoon, greasy microphone in hand.
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nationalpost.com
P.S. The first part is mine. Check out where Chritie's article starts. |
