The Media and the Saudi

As usual, The New Yorker's Amy Davidson is great on how the media puffed up "Saudi in custody" (which I mocked from the beginning) as true suspect in Boston bombing when he was nothing but a victim.  Yet he was tackled at  the scene of the crime and interviewed and his apartment raided and possessions carried out--though not merely judged "in the wrong place at the wrong time."  Like so many others.  Who were there and ran.  But were not Saudis.

It might be comforting to think of this as a blip, an aberration, something that will be forgotten tomorrow—if not by this young man. There are people at Guanátanmo who have also been cleared by our own government, and are still there. A new report on the legacy of torture after 9/11, released Tuesday, is a well-timed admonition. The F.B.I. said that they would “go to the ends of the earth” to get the Boston perpetrators. One wants them to be able to go with their heads held high.