How not to respond to a tragedy

So when I heard, "This is Tagg Romney," I knew it wasn't going to be about what actually happened, it was going to be about using the bombings to make a political point and so I turned away.  I misjudged the timing.  I turned back just in time to see his closing remarks: "I'll tell you what the headlines in Boston would have been.  They would have been the winners."

There comes a point, years down the line, when it might be appropriate to imagine alternate universes, and some of that will be political.  "Would the September 11th attacks have happened had Gore been President?" is a completely valid question.  It is not a valid question to be asking the day after.

At this point these are what people should be thinking about the tragedy:
1 They should be thinking about the living victims and the families and friends of the dead ones.
2 They should be asking how this happened so we can make sure that it does not happen again.
3 They should be asking if it is over so that if it is not we can stop whatever is planned next and thus make sure that that plan never becomes a reality.

That, more or less it.  Scoring political points should not be on the agenda.  Ideally it should never be on the agenda.  But we never live up to the ideal.  So as a bare modicum of respect, it should not be on the agenda today.

-

I have a twitter account, the fact that it's existed since early august last year and today was my fifth tweet is evidence of how much I use it.  Hard to fit anything worth saying into 140 characters or less.  Anyway, tweet 5: I have a modest suggestion: If someone uses what happened in Boston to score political points then everyone stops listening to them.