Giving Comfort to Terrorists

I love a self-righteous rant and few people are better at getting red faced and strident than Bill O'Reilly. In the wake of last week's local elections Bill had the presence of mind to state, "Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead, and if al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."

Thems is fightin' words. Bill's opinion of America's preeminent hotbed of lefty, lezzo, homo, pinko liberalism has never been in any doubt, and for that reason the urge to dismiss his remarks out of hand as those of a loud-mouthed flame-thrower are made that much easier. Never the less, another Bill—in this case his last name is Maher—was dragged over the coals in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks for thinking beyond the knee-jerk reaction of let's-hurry-up-and-kill-a-pile-of-Muslims by actually suggesting that perhaps US international policy might have played a part in fomenting the kind of sentiment that ultimately steers extremists in the direction of the World Trade Centers. He was apparently "giving comfort to terrorists".

Now it's Bill O'Reilly's turn. Inconsequential? You betcha. Hypocritical? Right on.