I can think of a number of reasons. First, the White House did a good job downplaying the story. That effort was aided by the fact, as suggested above, that there are no good visuals to go with the headline. Stock footage of computer terminals is boring.

But that doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s “third law” holds that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” We understand as an intellectual matter that hacking isn’t magic. But that doesn’t change the fact that this kind of crime doesn’t feel wholly real either. The media may be downplaying it, but the public seems underwhelmed as well.