The facts, as they are developing, seem to point to a criminal act by a very drunk guy, but as reported by Ben Smith, the police are not linking the incident to the controversy over the Cordoba mosque.
But that has not stopped the usual suspects, like Juan Cole, from going overboard with headlines and "reasoning" like this:
Republican National Committee Slashes New York Muslim Cabbie
It wasn’t the 21-year-old Michael Enright who drunkenly slashed his New York city cab driver after asking ‘Are you Muslim?’More to follow on the left-wing blogosphere befooling itself, once again, à la Bill Sparkman.
It was the Republican National Committee. From August of 2006, the RNC decided to demonize Muslims and Islam as a campaign ploy, to scare apparently easily spooked white Christians. In recent weeks, Newt Gingrich sharpened the blade by comparing Muslims to Nazis. Gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio asked if the Sunni Kuwaiti Sufi Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is on a good will mission to the Muslim world on behalf of the US State Department and was deployed in the same way by George W. Bush, is a terrorist in the employ of Shiite Iran.
The slasher was apparently “very drunk,” but what does being drunk do to a person? Makes them suggestible, lets primal emotions come to the fore. Newt Gingrich and Rick Lazio may as well have kept Enwright in their basements in chains and whipped him into a frenzy as to spew their hatred on the airwaves.
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Politico says the guy spent some time in Afghanistan and both they and the AP now confirm he worked for the pro-mosque group. He may have been drunk--or--it might have been a dirty trick to create a hate crime because none existed.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2010/08/left-crushed-taxi-cab-perp-worked-for-promosque-group.html
So let me get this straight.
ReplyDelete19 Muslims fly planes into buildings and murder 3,000 Americans shouting Allah Akbar, in order to spread Islam.
But it would be wrong to blame all Muslims for that. Which I agree with.
And that is why liberals say we must let them build at ground zero. Um, no. That particular imam appears to be a radical in sheep’s clothing, calling for Iranian style democracy in the United States. And even if not, even regular Muslims recognize that this would be encouraging our enemies.
But on the other hand if one who opposes the ground zero mosque harms a Muslim, well that just proves we are all haters.
But on the third hand, when a Palestinian suicide bombs a jew, we need to understand the root causes of his terror and recognize the injustices that drove him to it.
But when people like this lash out, or Tim McVeigh, don’t look behind it.
I mean we shouldn’t be looking behind things in either case, but how about some consistency, here?
I wouldn't be surprised if they developed a new theory of "second-hand violence" attributable to us hate-spewing Tea Party whackos. The actual facts of any incident don't matter. Second-violence is not victim-specific. We just get people so riled that they just go nuts on the first person who crosses their path. Especially Muslims who are famous for beating their wives, mothers and sisters when provoked by televised news reports.
ReplyDeletebtw, i give cole a very similar fisking, here: http://allergic2bull.blogspot.com/2010/08/on-collective-blame-and-root-causes-and.html
ReplyDeleteI rarely agree with you, but this time you're right. Cole's headline is a grotesque distortion.
ReplyDeleteIt should be "Murdoch Media Empire Slashes New York Muslim Cabbie."
If im not mistaken Juan Cole is part of the group that is trying to islamacize our schools in a front group for the Muslim brotherhood. So i assume anything he says is pure propaganda
ReplyDelete