The overly generous payoffs to WTC families has always bothered me. Keep in mind though that the media loved Oklahoma City if only because the perpetrator was a right-leaning, angry, white male military veteran. At the end of the day though the victims were simple flyover hicks happy to have had a government job with benefits. They weren't sophisticated New Yorkers.
For example, one guy who was killed (Shepherd? Montana?) was on news again and again while a little boy torture murdered about the same time got scant attention.
The murderers were gay. The media didn't want to reinforce the stereotype of "gay man as sadistic pedophile."
There wasn't even too much coverage about the torture/murder spree of the Carr brothers, which involved attractive, white victims.
The killers were black. Again, the media didn't want to reinforce the stereotype of "black man as violent criminal who murders for no good reason."
This, of course, troubles me. I know very well that the vast majority of gay men are not sadistic pedophiles just as the vast majority of black men are not cold-blooded murderers. Every group has their psychopaths but the fact that the media shelved the Jessie Durbisher (sp?) story and more importantly the vicious Wichita murder spree was completely irresponsible. The Wichita "horror" should have been national news due to the level of carnage. Instead it was a blurb in regional newspapers.
The payouts, or payoffs, to the WTC families bothered me less after I realized it was the Feds way of covering their butts for their multi-decade incompetence in defending our shores. Endless civil actions would have shut down commercial air travel and, more importantly from a bureaucratic perspective, have tested the government's constitutionally protected right to negligence; i.e. sovereign immunity. Rather than blame those who accepted the checks we should focus on those who made them necessary.