Here’s the formula: Conservative gives an interview and the media picks every answer to pieces. Liberal gives an interview and even the most ludicrous statement goes unquestioned.
Take, for example, last weekend’s interview with President Obama in the New York Times. Here’s how Reuter’s adoringly reported it:
“U.S. President Barack Obama is open to the idea of reaching out to moderate elements of the Taliban.”
“Obama said that some of the U.S. success in Iraq involved reaching out to Islamic fundamentalists who had been alienated by the tactics of al Qaeda in Iraq.”
We’re still trying to figure out what a moderate Taliban is and wonder why neither the Times nor Reuters asked the question.
Are the moderates the ones in the General Department for the Preservation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Amr-bil Maroof Wa Nahi Anil Munkar) who search houses and destroy television sets, radios, cassettes, and photographs?
Or the ones who roam the streets beating those they deem to be violators of Sharia law? The ones behind gender apartheid who force women to wear burqas and ban girls from attending school? The ones who control the opium trade? The ones who perform mass executions in Kabul’s soccer stadium? The ones who destroyed ancient Buddhist statues because they were “blasphemous?”
Moderate Taliban. That’s what’s known as an oxymoron. Like “jumbo shrimp” and “Senate Intelligence Committee.”
