NP: Pearl Jam, Rearviewmirror

"The military said it's still not sure what caused the crash but noted there was bad weather at the time."

That's how Eric Umansky parsed the available information on yesterday's helicopter crash in Iraq in Slate's Today's Papers column. A little more digging brought up the following, from the Washington Post (registration required):

Defense Department officials in Washington said the pilot may have been unable to navigate through the sandstorm. Officials said the cause was still under investigation.

I'm sorry if I seem horribly jaded, but this seems like they're planting a talking point more than offering an explanation. "We don't know yet, but did you notice the bad weather?" Without any disrespect toward Occam's Razor, this just isn't sitting well in my mind. Everybody seems happy to run with the "bad weather" explanation, even though it seems pretty clear it was offered up only as a guess, and that disturbs me.

Obviously, I'd prefer to be wrong here. And I'm sure I'm not the first to suggest maybe we're not getting the straight dope from the DOD in this instance, but DailyKos has gotten way too shrill for me since the election for me to go and check.

I'm suspicious, is all.