Malign Hesitation

Malign hesitation is a good term. The authorities in Colorado Springs simply don't know how to spin the obvious in ways that don't make the city look bad. News abhors a vacuum, so people like Ted Cruz make up cover stories:

Caution in the light of factual uncertainty is almost always a laudable stance for journalists and public officials. But from the beginning of yesterday's attack on the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs there's been an odd reluctance to state what appears to be obvious: that the attacker, now identified as 57-year-old Robert Lewis Dear, was motivated by extremist anti-abortion politics.