Remember also the shoe bomber. At first they tried to paint him as a mostly harmless nut, and tried to say the shoe bomb would have done no serious damage. But it didn't work because a lot of people knew the bomb could have done some real harm.
The building in NYC was, I think, a genuine suicide nut case. The perp died overnight, I think. A terrorist would have likely done something that would have harmed more civilians--they like to hurt women and children, brave he-men that they are...
The bad thing is, because they are always so quick to say, "Nope, not terrorism." before they could possibly know, people are less and less willing to believe them, so things like the recent NYC building explosion are more suspect (even tho it really does seem to clearly be a case of a nut who wanted to kill himself and destroy his asset so his wife could not have it).
susie
Remember also the shoe bomber.
They always call him Richard Reed.
His name is Abdel Rahim.
We have the same birthday.