For some reason, I had the TV news channels on today, which meant that I heard a lot about the Washington Sniper. As with the recent coverage of the Chandra Levy murder, it struck me that everything that was really known with any certainty could be summarized in around five minutes, but that TV time had to be filled…
…so filled it has been with rumors, highly-peripheral testimony (CNN had on a guy who talked about being stuck in traffic a few blocks from the latest shooting) and my favorite — speculation on the identity and motives of this guy that no one knows anything about. We don't know who's doing it, or even if it's only one person, and we don't know why. The police don't even have enough input from the few witnesses to assemble a composite sketch. But experts sure have a lot of theories on what might be on his mind, what kind of training he might have had, what he perhaps had for breakfast this morning, etc. I so long to hear one of these talking heads say, "Okay, here's all we know and there's no point in speculating further, so let's talk about a topic we know something about."
On the other hand, I am watching. And maybe that's all that matters.