Obama Caves on Boston Marathon Bombing and Uses the “T-Word”

By Stephanie Bertorelli
Clash Daily Guest Contributor

President Obama, in remarks on Tuesday morning, finally indirectly identified the Boston Marathon bombing, “given what we now know by what took place, the FBI is investigating it as an act of terrorism”.

I’m sorry but I want to know, like most other Americans on either side of the aisle: why, Mr. President, did it take you almost 24 hours to identify this indirectly as an act of terror?

It doesn’t matter if you know the by whom and when it conceived, no matter those answers, this very clearly and immediately was obviously a terrorist act. Either homegrown or foreign, it doesn’t change the fact that any premeditated bombing such as this is quite simply terrorism.

Because of my job as a publicist and a writer, or maybe just because it I like to stay informed, I am a news hound by nature. If I am not near a television, I always have my phone which alerts me to breaking news. The news of the bombing broke as I was in the car picking up my children from school.

I began receiving Tweets, text messages and Facebook alerts at a rate that I don’t normally see. The first was fairly ambiguous but as the second, third and fourth breaking news message came across the screen, I knew that something big had happened. In those brief moments, seeing the texts before I could get to a television, I attempted to, without scaring them, let my girls know that something was going on.

I told them that something had happened at the marathon in Boston and that I would need to watch the news when we got home so I asked them if they would start their homework in their room so that I could find out what was happening. My phone then rang while we were driving and I tried to gather as much information as I could, again without scaring them (they are 6 and 8), carefully choosing the words I was using on my end of the conversation.

I asked the person on the other end of my call, “have they used the T word’? The answer I heard was not yet, as it was only a few moments after the attack. As I hung up the phone, I looked in my rear view mirror as my eight year old daughter said, “Mom, you can say the word terrorism.”

If my eight year can understand, with limited knowledge of the situation, that this was an act of terrorism, why did it take the President of the United States almost a day to do so?

Anyone who knows me knows that I, like most other Americans, was profoundly affected by the events of September 11, 2001. The most notable lingering effect for me though is the idea that my children have to grow up not remembering the relative feeling of safety that we as Americans used to have.

And because of that simple truth, that they won’t ever know a pre-9/11 sense of security, my girls are able to see the clear-as-day fact that the Boston Marathon bombing was indeed an act of terror no matter when the President decided to say so.

Stephanie Bertorelli is a publicist and author living in Charlotte, NC. She’s the mother of two girls that she’s raised to say thank you to all officers and soldiers they meet and who also know that they better get the tissues ready for mom when the National Anthem plays. With a passion for sparkly shoes and vintage green dresses, she spends her free time (what free time?) writing, perfecting new recipes and trying out new wines.