The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Austere Religious Scholar’

Posted on | October 28, 2019 | 2 Comments

 

In the carnival of #FakeNews self-ownage, the hits just keep coming:

The Post’s obituary briefly acknowledges the circumstances of al-Baghdadi’s death before painting, at length, a rather sympathetic portrait of al-Baghdadi’s “canny pragmatism.” This is how the Post describes his background:

From his teens, he was fascinated with Islamic history and the intricacies of Islamic law. Acquaintances would remember him as a shy, nearsighted youth who liked soccer but preferred to spend his free time at the local mosque.
“He always had religious or other books attached on the back of his bike,” Tariq Hameed, an acquaintance from the same lower-middle-class neighborhood, told a Newsweek interviewer in 2014. The young Ibrahim disdained the Western clothes popular with Samarra’s young men, preferring the traditional prayer cap, beard and white dishdasha robe of the religiously devout, neighbors said.
He graduated from the University of Baghdad in 1996 and received a master’s degree in Koranic recitation from the Saddam University for Islamic Studies in 1999. Immersing himself in the arcane world of 7th-century religious codes, he grew increasingly conservative. Acquaintances remembered how the college-age Mr. Baghdadi took offense at the sight of men and women dancing in the same room during wedding celebrations.

It’s an odd thing, though: Al-Baghdadi was “austere” and couldn’t stand to see men and women dancing together. And yet:

Later, former hostages would reveal that Mr. Baghdadi also kept a number of personal sex slaves during his years as the Islamic State’s leader, including slain American hostage Kayla Mueller and a number of captured Yazidi women.

How austere can you get? On balance, I think Trump’s sendoff to al-Baghdadi was a heck of a lot more appropriate than the Post’s.

One is reminded — and not coincidentally — of how every time a black teenage hoodlum gets shot by a cop, the media treat us to stories about how this “honor student” (urban gang-bangers are always on the honor roll, it seems) was beloved by his family and enjoyed playing sports. These accounts are usually illustrated with a photo of the deceased perp as an eighth-grader, never the Facebook photos the teenage thug posted — brandishing pistols, smoking weed, flashing gang symbols, etc. The liberal ideology of the media evidently requires them under every circumstance to depict black people as innocent victims of “racism,” and this practice now seems to have been extended to all Muslims, including terrorist leaders who enslave and murder women. No Republican congressmen could ever expect such favorable coverage as the Washington Post accords to America’s worst enemies.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)


 

Category: Islam, Media Bias, Terrorism

Comments

2 Responses to “‘Austere Religious Scholar’”

  1. News of the Week (October 3rd, 2019) | The Political Hat
    November 3rd, 2019 @ 8:09 pm

    […] “Austere Religious Scholar” In the carnival of #FakeNews self-ownage, the hits just keep coming […]

  2. News of the Week (November 3rd, 2019) | The Political Hat
    November 3rd, 2019 @ 8:17 pm

    […] “Austere Religious Scholar” In the carnival of #FakeNews self-ownage, the hits just keep coming […]