Demagogue

The Right is having a hissy-fit over the media coverage surrounding the driver who last Friday used his jeep as a weapon, injuring several students on the University of North Carolina campus. The right-wing site Newsbusters has complained that the New York Times buried its Nov. 8 article on page 18. Initially, this seemed like a legitimate point until I realized that the UNC story was, by then, 4 days old.

Newsbusters has also attacked the Times because its March 8th article "doesn’t even use the term Muslim." True, but what the blog doesn't mention is that the Times published this AP article on Sunday, which reported:

A recent University of North Carolina graduate was charged with nine counts of attempted murder on Saturday, a day after the authorities said he drove through a popular campus gathering spot in an attempt to avenge Muslim deaths.

That's pretty darn clear.

Nowhere in the Times' 441-word March 8th article by Brenda Goodman does the word "Muslim" appear, and I'll admit that's a little odd. On the other hand, you'd have to be a moron not to figure out from the 3rd paragraph of this article that the attack was perpetrated by a Muslim man who was motivated by political circumstances:

Mr. Taheri-azar, 22, an Iranian-born graduate of the university, felt that the United States government had been "killing his people across the sea" and that his actions reflected "an eye for an eye."

Yesterday in this column, conservative pundit Tony Blankley whined:

"Neither the university nor most of the media has been willing to characterize this (UNC) event as a terrorist attempt by a radical Muslim ..."

I don't know whether Blankley's assertion about "most of the media" is true or not. But even if it is, is this such a huge deal?

I can't see how the label we attach to the UNC incident -- or "terrorist attack," if you prefer -- will do anything to help us prevent such attacks in the future.

And one more thing that these conservatives should keep in mind. They've been telling us for a few years now that President Bush deserves credit for preventing any post-9/11 terrorist attacks on American shores. If they're so determined to shout "terrorist attack" about this UNC incident, fine. But then they have to admit that the Bushies aren't God's gift to homeland security after all.