In the wake of the tragic cowardly attacks in NYC on Tuesday (10.31.2017), I have this vision of ISIS leaders monitoring American news outlets and once again gleefully shaking their heads with a combination of jubilation and disbelief. 

Unarmed innocent women, children and men killed or injured.

“Shukran!”  

Major media outlets obsess and plaster TERROR IN NEW YORK banners on-air, online, on social media. They post the murderer’s name, his headshot, loops of whatever video they can run 24×7, even maps of his truck’s fatal trajectory.  A relentless frenzy of pontificating pundits, firsthand accounts, images, and loops. An ad campaign of the same magnitude would cost ISIS millions.

“Shukran jazilaan American media!”

And then, the so-called American President decides no one – certainly not ISIS –  is going to outdo him when it comes to fomenting divisiveness, so he tweets an incendiary tweet (fueled by FOX) blaming Democrats and Schumer and favorably pointing his tiny fingers at his flaccid Muslim ban “strategy.”

“ALLAH AKBAR!!”  I imagine the ISIS cowards debating whether or not to send Trump a personal thank you note , some hair product or just a check.

My plea to the media is STOP. Please just report the event.  Give us the facts. Let us know if the immediate danger has passed. Then, Jesus H Christ, enough already.  You glorify these wingnuts, and elevate them to a status that marketing agencies only dream of.  STOP providing the name of the bastards. Let them slip into anonymity and refer to them as “cowards,” not “terrorists,” the same plea I made 2 years ago after the Paris attacks (see Cowards).

And to the president, I would say…oh what’s the use, you wouldn’t understand, though I think Tillerson probably nailed it.