Optimal in Benghazi

The mother of Sean Smith, murdered in Libya, gives an interview to my old colleague Toby Harnden at The Daily Mail in London:

Speaking from her home in San Diego, Mrs Smith, 72, continued: 'It's insensitive to say my son is not very optimal - he is also very dead. I've not been "optimal" since he died.'

I wonder if any of the expensively credentialed Columbia Journalism School graduates at dying US monodailies ever reflect on why Americans have to go to the foreign press to find a quote like that.