Scans_Daily

Well, look literally at what Constantine says. This is a "botched job" because "a kid and his parents survived. They got out to tell the story. The idea was to prevent that happening." Since Nicky had captured Howard before Swamp Thing or even JC had shown up, how was Alec supposed to "prevent" Howard's escape? Should he have flexed his muscles some more until Howard's family's car fell into an earthquake and got crushed, Superman: The Movie-style?

The generous reading is that JC has been waiting here even longer than it looks like and he blames Alec for not getting here faster, before Howard was given irrefutable evidence of vampires' existence. Had Alec purged the vamps before Howard could find Nicky, Howard would be left shaken up and wondering, but not sure, and that'd certainly be morally acceptable to anyone involved who was still alive.

Still, Constantine's wording is troubling, and considering that Alec straight-up punched the Demon for proposing a similar choice, I think John only gets away with it because he's giving Alec such a flood of information, in his infuriatingly oblique way, that Alec doesn't really have time to concentrate on this before we've moved on to the topic of Kennescook.

Your suggestion of Constantine and Waller IS really interesting, though.