Let me start by saying I would never make light of a bombing like the one that occurred early Thursday in midtown Manhattan.

A potentially deadly explosion in Times Square, an area frequented by millions of people, is, indeed, unsettling and scary.

But I had to laugh this morning when Fox News – always given over to ridiculous exaggeration when reporting on the terror threat – referred to Thursday’s incident as “a sophisticated attack.”

Sophisticated? For heaven’s sake, a guy rode up on a bicycle and placed a small explosive device made so crudely that, when it went off, it damaged only a door and window a few feet away.

Planning a mass-casualty act of terrorism for several years and ultimately hijacking passenger jets and flying them into high-rise office buildings is a sophisticated attack -- despicable and horrifying, to be sure, but sophisticated nonetheless.

What happened on Thursday in Times Square was, thankfully, the work of a rank amateur.