So I don’t begrudge the folks over at Fox News their right to ask questions in the wake of the attempted bombing in Times Square. However, I do begrudge the Fox crew the inane questions they’ve chosen to ask. (Hat tip to Media Matters on this.)

Interviewing Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the Fox and Friends hosts tried to elicit a characterization of the incident as terrorism. Napolitano, who called it a “potential terrorist attack” – perhaps not wanting to taint a future jury — didn’t satisfy their jonesing for the magic word, in its pure, unmodified state. Later on, host Gretchen Carlson said to guest Rudy Giuliani,

We just interviewed though, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, who refuses to say the word terror. Is this a mandate within the Obama administration, not saying the word terror … the reason I ask the question, Mr. Mayor, is because if you have an administration that does not want to say the word terror, then how the heck do you fight terrorism?

Likewise, Fox legal analyst Peter Johnson delivered a melodramatic monologue, asking, “Are we safer now than we were nine years ago, or have officials lost their way … Are we sleeping while the enemy plans? … Is the Department of Homeland Security protecting you?”

First of all it seems worth noting that the area around the bomb was evacuated, the bomb squad showed up, and no explosion happened. Then, the guy was arrested. So the answer to Carlson’s and Johnson’s questions would seem to be that, in fact, the government is perfectly capable of protecting us and fighting terrorism. That’s at least where the facts seem to point in the Times Square case.

Nor is it in any way obvious what the vocabulary of government officials has to do with anything at all, when there isn’t any complaint with their conduct. You know, the stuff they actually did. The fact that some guy tried to set off a badly-designed bomb is in no way evidence of government negligence. “This story sure is a series of close calls,” says the National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez. That’s the best you guys can come up with? By that standard, every time officials foil a terrorist attack beyond its initial stages, it’s a sign that they’re blowing it and leaving us unprotected. Really, the mind boggles at this logic.

It’s just not that hard to do terrible things to innocent people. We see this all the time, and the fact that would-be terrorists so often blow it is mainly a sign of their relative weakness and incompetence. But it’s also evidence that anything beyond the planning stages is really going to be, as Lopez puts it, “a close call,” and we should count ourselves lucky that there aren’t more catastrophic events, rather than grab at whatever argument we can, no matter how implausible, to use as a cudgel against politicians we don’t like.

But alas, there’s also a nonsensical attempt to use this attack as part of the complaint against trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York. Says Fox’s Steve Doocy, “New York is always a target.” So does it really make sense “to have the Khalid Shaikh Mohammed trial and the other terrorists done right here at this big target?” Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. echoes him. “This trial should be taken out of New York; it should be announced immediately. What Attorney General Eric Holder is doing is just really fighting here for a left wing ideology.” (King is also inexplicably outraged that Holder is exercising independence as attorney general, and calls for the president to subjugate the prosecutorial arm of the government to his will.)

Look, terrorists aren’t like gnats attracted to a light. They’re not just getting pulled around to various targets depending on how much attractive stuff we pile up there. What conservatives freaking out over this have failed to grasp is that terrorism is strategic. They go after available targets to try to produce political outcomes that will benefit their cause. If New York is, as Doocy says, “always a target,” then it’s probably not going to make a difference where Mohammed is tried. Rather more to the point, we can’t really predict what will motivate any given attack. It’s just not that hard for some militant to pick up a gun or strap on a bomb and go. The fact that it doesn’t happen that much is not evidence of a terrifying secret plot in the making. What it shows is that as a rule, we’re pretty safe, and can’t really expect to predict too well the exceptions to that rule. So it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to descend into utter terror every time some nasty character bungles a car bomb and gets busted at the airport.

Some on the right would like to take advantage of this moment to declare race war. (See Mark Steyn at the National Review, claiming that the government is insufficiently suspicious of “guy[s] with a name like Mohammed,” and Rev. Franklin Graham declaring, “Muslims are getting a pass.”) Panicking and declaring race war seems like exactly the response that terrorism is meant to elicit, so let’s perhaps all just chill out. We busted the would-be bomber. Why give him what he wanted now?

Shahzad was being held in New York and couldn’t be contacted. He has a Shelton, Conn., address; a phone number listed there wasn’t in service. Investigators were searching his home.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District in Manhattan will handle the case and said Shahzad would appear in court Tuesday on formal charges, but those charges were not made public.

Holder said the U.S. “will not rest until we have brought everyone responsible to justice,” suggesting additional suspects are being sought.

Law enforcement officials say Shahzad bought the SUV, a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder, from a Connecticut man about three weeks ago and paid cash. The officials spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.

Police said the bomb could have produced “a significant fireball” and sprayed shrapnel with enough force to kill pedestrians and knock out windows. The SUV was parked on a street lined with restaurants and Broadway theaters, including one showing “The Lion King,” and full of people out on a Saturday night.

The vehicle identification number had been removed from the Pathfinder’s dashboard, but it was stamped on the engine, and investigators used it to find the owner of record. The discovery was paramount to the investigation.

“The discovery of the VIN on the engine block was pivotal in that it led to the identifying the registered owner,” said Paul Browne, chief New York Police Department spokesman. “It continues to pay dividends.”

Officials say the SUV’s registered owner, whose name has not been released, was not considered a suspect in the bomb scare.

Investigators tracked the license plate found on the rear of the SUV to a used auto parts shop in Stratford, Conn., where they discovered the plate was connected to a different vehicle.

They also spoke to the owner of an auto sales shop in nearby Bridgeport because a sticker on the Pathfinder indicated the SUV had been sold by his dealership. Owner Tom Manis said there was no match between the identification number the officers showed him and any vehicle he sold.

As the SUV buyer came into focus, investigators backed off other leads. They had initially wanted to speak with a man apparently in his 40s who was videotaped shedding his shirt near the Pathfinder. Officials said it’s possible he was just a bystander.

In Washington on Monday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Saturday’s attempted bombing was a terrorist act.

The motive remained unclear. The Pakistani Taliban appeared to claim responsibility for the bomb in three videos that surfaced after the weekend scare, monitoring groups said. New York officials said police have no evidence to support the claims. It was unclear if the suspect in custody had any relationship to the group.

The SUV was parked near offices of Viacom Inc., which owns Comedy Central. The network recently aired an episode of the animated show “South Park” that the group Revolution Muslim had complained insulted the Prophet Muhammad by depicting him in a bear costume.

The date of the botched bombing, May 1, was International Workers Day, a traditional date for political demonstrations, and thousands had rallied for immigration reform that day in New York.

Security also had been tight in the city in advance of a visit to the United Nations by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a nuclear weapons conference.

The SUV was captured on video crossing an intersection at 6:28 p.m. Saturday. A vendor pointed out the Pathfinder to an officer about two minutes later. Times Square, clogged with tourists on a warm evening, was shut down for 10 hours. A bomb squad dismantled the explosive device, and no one was hurt.

The explosive device had cheap-looking alarm clocks connected to a 16-ounce can filled with fireworks, which were apparently intended to detonate the gas cans and set the propane afire in a chain reaction, police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

A metal rifle cabinet placed in the cargo area was packed with fertilizer, but NYPD bomb experts believe it was not a type volatile enough to explode like the ammonium nitrate grade fertilizer used in previous terrorist bombings.

The amount of fertilizer was unknown. Police estimated the cabinet weighed 200 to 250 pounds when they pulled it from the vehicle.

President Barack Obama telephoned handbag vendor Duane Jackson on Monday to commend him for alerting authorities to the smoking SUV. The White House said Obama thanked Jackson, of Buchanan, N.Y., for his vigilance and for acting quickly to prevent serious trouble.

This investigation is ongoing, as are our attempts to gather useful intelligence, and we continue to pursue a number of leads. But its clear that the intent behind this terrorist act was to kill Americans.

FBI agents are working with their state and local counterparts in New York, Connecticut and other jurisdictions to gather evidence and intelligence related to this case. We are also coordinating with other members of the Presidents national security team to ensure we use every resource available to the United States to bring anyone responsible to justice.

We continue to gather leads in this investigation, and its important that the American people remain vigilant. The vehicle in Times Square was first noticed on Saturday by a citizen who reported it to authorities, and, as always, any American who notices suspicious activity should report it to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.

This investigation is ongoing, it is multi-faceted, and it is aggressive. As we move forward, we will focus on not just holding those responsible for it accountable, but also on obtaining any intelligence about terrorist organizations overseas.

Because of the fast-moving nature of this investigation, I am not able to make any further information public at this time. But the American people should know that we are deploying every resource available, and we will not rest until we have brought everyone responsible to justice.