© Reuters / Maranie Staab
Despite its superhuman efforts to tie the violence to domestic extremism - the agency's favorite new bugaboo, supposedly lurking around every corner and under every bed - the Boulder shooting culprit bore not even a passing resemblance to the domestic extremist threat FBI director Christopher Wray has attempted to outline in a manner his agents might be able to understand.
In an intriguing twist, the alleged murder suspect Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa was actually already known to the FBI, having had two run-ins with the agency and racked up a tidy little criminal record to match.
The "metastasizing threat," as Wray describes domestic terrorists (presumably the ones who don't work for his agency), bears no resemblance to "white nationalism," Christian extremism, or even the retro militia groups of the 1990s, all of which have recently been hyped as things right-thinking Americans should fear. But this is an embarrassing little blunder. If the agency wants to gin up some proper fear, they'll have to sync their imaginations hard and get to work.
Comment: Unfortunately, Mr. Helmer's prediction is all to likely.