City Room notes a small blast, believed to come from an improvised explosive device, at the recruiting station in Times Square at 3:43 AM this morning.

(Image: © The Daily Gotham)

New York City police officers and firefighters cordoned off much of Times Square for more than two hours after a small explosion — set off, the authorities said, by an “improvised explosive device” — damaged the front of the Armed Forces Career Center on the traffic island bounded by 43rd and 44th Streets, Seventh Avenue and Broadway at 3:43 a.m., officials said. No one was injured, and after a temporary interruption, subway service was restored.

Most traffic around Times Square was allowed to pass by 6:45 a.m., after vehicles had been diverted for more than two hours. City officials confirmed that police had initially blocked off the area as a precaution to ensure that there was no secondary device or other threat; the officials emphasized that they did not believe anyone was in danger.

Police officers at the scene said the explosion blew a hole through the front door of the recruiting station, which is at the northern end of the structure.

Members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the large Police Department and F.B.I. unit that investigates terrorism, were at the scene of the blast, supporting the Police Department’s Bomb Squad, which along with other police detectives likely will take the lead role in investigating the incident, an F.B.I. official said. The official said that in today’s attack, a man in a gray hooded sweatshirt was seen leaving the scene on a bicycle.

What's interesting, obviously, is the blog reaction on the right; it's gleeful.

Hot Air yaps about domestic terrorism and points fingers - at the political opposition.

Now the [protest at military recruiting offices] movement has decided to morph into domestic terrorism. Of course, the people responsible will claim that they bombed the office during the night to keep anyone from being hurt. That’s exactly the same kind of rationalization that people like the Weather Underground and the SLA used at first, anyway — that terrorism was justified by their politics. In fact, a few like William Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn still claim that.

Rhymes with Right knows the culprits:

My personal thought is that this probably makes the perps "Code Pink types", since any self-respecting jihadi would have blown himself up during daylight hours to take out as many innocents as possible. The fact you have a coward fleeing the scene on an environmentally-friendly means of transportation when there was no one around makes it appear to be the tactics of the Left -- though still treasonous terrorism.

Balloon Juice keeps it on point:

Some jackass threw an incendiary device through the window of a recruiting station in Times Square, so you all know what that means- another 5 weeks of LIEBERALS HATE AMERIKKA from the chest-thumping, cheeto-munching chickenhawk brigade.

Nothing like a bombing, obviously, to get the crazies in high dudgeon. Because, after all, when you hear "improvised explosive device", the first thing that comes to the mind of any rational person isn't, say, the ongoing bloody fiasco in Baghdad; no, reasonable people think immediately of Code Pink.

Is it really any wonder that nobody takes these people seriously any more?