Calling A Rose By Any Other Name [UPDATED]

"A potential terrorist attack?"  That is what the car bomb scare last night in NYC is being called.  To be clear, it was a failed act of terrorism, no matter who was responsible UNLESS it was aimed to kill a particular individual or group at that location for the sheer sake of killing those people.  Whoever set the car bomb was almost surely trying to kill lots of random people and send a broader message of fear to NY and beyond.  Just like flying a plane into an IRS office in Austin, blowing up a federal building in Oklahoma, etc.  It does not matter whether you are white or not, Christian, Jewish or Muslim or none of the above.

It is too soon to tell what motivated this, although the bomb was poorly designed, suggesting poorly trained individuals.  What does this event mean?  Again, too soon to tell, but I am surprised it has not happened before.  The only thing that I can predict is that the Republicans will blame Obama for the event.

One other thing--it does point out that cities that get rid of their street vendors do so at some peril.  These guys provide an additional set of eyes on the street.

[UPDATED]  Good, clear discussion by someone, Steven Coll, who knows more about this stuff than I.

The description of the Dr. Seuss-inspired contraption in the back of the S.U.V. offered by the police suggests someone who tried to go to school on the Internet but didn’t have the patience to complete too many classes.

Coll goes on with some sensible recommendations:

There will be more of this sort of low-level terrorism in the United States in the years ahead, not only from self-styled jihadis but possibly also from the extreme right. Domestic terrorism constitutes a persistent and serious threat, but not a strategic or existential one. The country’s vulnerability arises not so much from the damage terrorists will cause but from American society’s self-defeating inability to see such violence in perspective and to find leadership and language to define national resilience

I disagree a bit with Coll's take on the reaction to the Chrismas attack.  I think over-reaction is perhaps a greater danger than under-reacting.  The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize.  If you do not over-react, you win the battle, if not the war.  If this means sometimes underplaying the reaction, then so be it. But this takes strength and a long view.  Much easier to do too much than too little.