Dry undies here, too, but the responders had to react as if a threat did exist. Disruption of citizens' patterns and schedules resulted.
Wonder what the economic impact was? What was the effect on children and old people who might have been separated from their caretakers? How much worry and distraction occurred across the country by those having loved ones in Boston? The byproducts of this act were as surely terrorism as if they had attached explosive devices to the structures.
I agree . . . OBL is laughing, but not because Americans are pansies, it's because Turner Broadcasting did his work for him today. (IF OBL is still breathing)
We should be fighting the war on Islamism by killing the bad guys where they live and then getting back to the openness that has always characterized American life.
What we are ACTUALLY doing is wrong on both counts. We're letting Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia get away with murder while encouraging suspicion and paranoia on the home front.