A Voice in the Wilderness In Defense of "Mere Conservatism"

Prager, The Left, and Our Response to Terrorism

The thwarted Times Square bombing a few weeks back has deservedly garnered much attention from the media and political leaders in New York City and Washington D.C.  But amidst the appropriate levels of coverage this story has been given, we witness an all-too-familiar (and dis-heartening) trend: the inability, or more likely, unwillingness, of so many prominent public figures to correctly identify Islamic terrorists when we see them.  

Talk show host, columnist, and fan-of-truth Dennis Prager has written what I consider to be one of the most important columns you will ever read in your life.  (How's that for an over-the-top build-up?)

While it cannot be proven, there is little reason to doubt that many on the Left are disappointed that the Times Square bomber didn't turn out to be the "white male" he was originally identified as.

This allegation may be wrong, but it is made on the basis of compelling evidence.  There is a perfectly clear pattern on the Left -- the normative Left, not just the "far" Left -- that denies the obvious when it comes to Islamic terrorism.

He continues:

Take, for example, Maj. Nidal Hasan, who murdered 13 fellow soldiers and tried to murder the 32 others whom he wounded at Fort Hood, Texas.  For days after the murders, liberal-Left commentators and mainstream media reports attributed Hasan's mass murders to everything but his Islamic beliefs -- even though it was known that he yelled out "Allahu Akbar" ("Allah is the Greatest") just as he began his shooting.

As "Hardball's" Chris Matthews announced, "It's unclear if religion was a factor in this shooting," and then added, "He makes a phone call or whatever, according to Reuters right now. Apparently he tried to contact al-Qaida ... That's not a crime, to call up al-Qaida, is it?"

The New York Times "Week in Review" article on the shootings was titled "When Soldiers Snap." As I wrote at the time, "The gist of the article was that Maj. Hasan had snapped -- even though he had never been in combat. He snapped in advance. Just two sentences in the article were devoted to the possibility that his motives were in any way relatable to his Muslim faith."

NPR'S Tom Gjelten offered the novel explanation that Hasan, who had never been in combat, may have suffered from "pre-traumatic stress disorder." Again, psychology, not religion.

On Fox News, Geraldo Rivera said, "I don't know what motivates him ... He could have had a toothache and gone off because of that."

That was then, back in November of last year, but what about this time around with the Times Square would-be bomber?

This time, the same thing happened, with one exception: For two days, it was assumed a "white male," shorthand for non-Muslim, non-minority American, tried to blow up passersby near Times Square in Manhattan.

New York city Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this to Katie Couric on CBS News on May 3: "If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that, somebody who's homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something, it could be anything."

It's OK for liberals to speculate that a terrorist might be a Right-wing white American opposed to ObamaCare (aka a tea partier). It is the rather more likely scenario of an Islamic terrorist that liberals not consider, let alone publicly express.

I attribute the lack of intellectual honesty on the part of the media (and politicians such as Mayor Bloomberg) to three things:

1. People are rightly afraid of the physical harm that may befall them or their family for speaking out against militant Islamic terror.  Critics of the irreconcilable wing of Islam have been intimidated, threatened, and even assassinated all around the globe.  In light of this, and however much I disagree with it, I can completely understand a public figure's timidity in addressing the fact that while not every Muslim is a terrorist, nearly every terrorist we've encountered as a nation the past 20 years has been a Muslim.

2. Political correctness.  This cultural phenomena has already been eating away at the moral and intellectual fibers of this nation for some time now.  The bizarre obsession people who practice the Ways of PC have with being nice more than being right is itself a threat to our way of life in the West.  How can I say I love my family and country when I won't even publicly recognize the evil that seeks to destroy them?  Especially when my rationale for not public recognizing the evil is rooted in my desire to avoid being called "intolerant" by by other feckless people who are ignoring the same things I am, and for no more than the same petty reasons as mine?  You are not more moral or compassionate when you cover up the misdeeds of groups of people merely because they have darker skin complexions or foreign accents.

3. Political pandering to potential voters and current constituents.  Mayor Bloomberg has a city full of diverse ethnic heritages, and that is an awesome, American thing about a place like NYC.  But we need our leaders to protect us, first and foremost.  I don't care if my senator, congressman, mayor, or governor gets re-elected, no matter how much I may love his brand of politics, if he or she is unwilling to do everything in his/her power to keep me safe.  The media has a role in this as well, as they are supposed to be the gatekeepers of relevant and important information for the public.

Of course the explanation for why it is so many have tried to explain away the Muslim background of recent killers (and would-be mass murderers, in the case of the Time Sqaure nut) might be a combination of dozens of reasons, but the fact remains that when the press and high-ranking Center-Left officials discover that an attacker who is of the Islamic persuasion has conducted (or attempted) a terrorist attack on American soil, they bury the lead.

Just remember this: If Shahzad had not been identified as the would-be bomber, the mainstream (i.e., liberal) news media and leading Democrats would have told us repeatedly that a white male -- surely a conservative white male -- was the Times Square terrorist, and that we should therefore be looking suspiciously at our fellow Americans on the Right, especially those attending tea parties. For while liberals claim not to know the motives of Muslim terrorists, they are always certain of conservatives' motives: racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia.

When, one day, the Left exits from history's stage, its epitaph will read: "Those who do not understand evil will not understand good."

Read the full column by Mr. Prager here.