[Alberta's Child]

Homeland Security Czar Tom Ridge revealed that the White House suspects the deadly attacks could be part of the recent wave of global terrorism.

This could be good news. I speculated yesterday that there would be no official acknowledgement of terrorism in this case until they were certain that the sniper threat was either eliminated or seriously diminished. There's no way the White House is ever going to admit that there is something outside its control lurking out there threatening U.S. citizens right in their own back yards.

[Scott from the Left Coast]

I am pretty close to your position here...my sense is that the White House will delay any such announcement until the proof is: 1) conclusive (when the President says something they must be certain because of the tremendous authority his statements carry -- they can't afford to be wrong); and 2) when they have a plan to deal with the outfall of the situation (the public reaction, which might be dramatic), a plan that they have high confidence in.

Just delaying the conjecture as long as they have has probably already worked to dampen the possibility of an explosive public reacton (against mulims in this country), simply because enough time has passed that everyone now "expects" this to be the case -- they've gotten used to the idea.