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I wouldn’t see it’s clear, but the evidence does point down a couple of paths only. But that’s not my point here.

Wouldn’t you say that in most terrorist attacks in the last 20 years there’s pretty clear evidence as to who’s behind them? The media are never so quick to assign blame in those instances. In fact, they devote time and space to attempting to explain how it’s NOT Islamic terrorists.

So my question is why is this case different? What’s different about Putin and Russia compared to Islamo-fascists. Why is it OK to take the initial reports and anecdotal evidence, synthesize them, and draw such an emphatic preliminary conclusion in this instance?

Sometimes it's not even clear that a plane was intentionally downed by anyone. And sometimes as in this case, there are several different possible culprits. In the 1980s, for example, you'd have to establish if Assad or Qaddafi or one of several Palestinian factions or German or Japanese terrorists were responsible.

That's a hypothesis that feels right. I wouldn't be surprised if it were true. My hunch is that a lot of people in the media want to blame White guys first. You saw that with some of the buzz about the Boston Marathon bombing. But proving that hypothesis to be true is something else. The people doing most of the speculating aren't necessarily the establishment media, but fringe bloggers. And the time line in each case can be hard to re-establish.