I’ve been reading a lot of comments ever since the sniper suspects were arrested about the failure of criminal profilers and, specifically, the implicit — and in some cases explicit — pre-arrest claims that the sniper(s) were almost certainly a white male.
Some commentators — Phil Donahue comes to mind — were particularly egregious in erroneously characterizing the sniper(s) as a priori white. The reality, of course, is that African Americans make up more than 40 percent of those who have committed sniper-style attacks in the United States.
On the other hand, sometimes the argument against such nonsense is pushed way past the breaking point, such as in this article cited by John O’Sullivan which Glenn Reynolds quotes from on his site,
Thus, when the journalists fear a story might inflame white racism, a Muslim terrorist like the LAX shooter perhaps, they play it down. When a story might challenge white racism, a Tim McVeigh maybe, they play it up. So when the sniper was still an unknown quantity, it was second nature to seize on anything–even racial profiling–to suggest that he was another Tim McVeigh rather than another Muhammad Hadayat.
It is absurd to suggest that the reason McVeigh’s crime received so much more coverage than Hadayat’s was because McVeigh was white and Hadayat was not. The last time I checked, McVeigh managed to pull off the single largest terrorist attack on American soil before 9/11 and in the process murdered 168 people, including 19 children. Moreover, McVeigh was part of a small conspiracy who carefully planned the Oklahoma City bombing.
Hadayat’s murder of two and injuring of four people at the LAX El Al Terminal was almost certainly an act of political terrorism, but it was of the lone nut variety and resulted in relatively few deaths.
McVeigh’s crimes received more intense coverage because his crimes were far more heinous and deservered much more coverage.