Media Mythbusters Blog

Cross-posted at Confederate Yankee:

Nicholas D. Kristof published an op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times that insinuates that preferring another candidate to Barack Obama is a sign of bigotry.

Subtle.

…the most monstrous bigotry in this election isn’t about either race or sex. It’s about religion.

The whispering campaigns allege that Mr. Obama is a secret Muslim planning to impose Islamic law on the country. Incredibly, he is even accused — in earnest! — of being the Antichrist.

Proponents of this theory offer detailed theological explanations for why he is the Antichrist, and the proof is that he claims to be Christian — after all, the Antichrist would say that, wouldn’t he? The rumors circulate enough that Glenn Beck of CNN asked the Rev. John Hagee, a conservative evangelical, what the odds are that Mr. Obama is the Antichrist.

I’m quite certain that there are some earnest, deluded souls out there that think Obama is indeed the Antichrist, but of course, there are people of questionable intelligence out there that feel the same way about George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, and even John McCain.

I must have missed Kristof’s editorials excoriating these fringe theologists, but he certainly wouldn’t single out those that would vote against his preferred candidate to the exclusion of others, would he?

But the “Antichrist” charge isn’t at the heart of Kristof’s argument, of course. This is:

These charges are fanatical, America’s own equivalent of the vicious accusations about Jews that circulate in some Muslim countries. They are less a swipe at one candidate than a calumny against an entire religion. They underscore that for many bigoted Americans in the 21st century, calling someone a Muslim is still a slur.

Fascinating.

Let’s set aside for a moment the fact that Barack Obama is not now a Muslim—and never has been—to examine Kristof’s basic grasp of reality.

He states, “These charges are fanatical, America’s own equivalent of the vicious accusations about Jews that circulate in some Muslim countries.”

“Equivalent?” Really?

Perhaps being at the New York Times he gets a different perspective than most Americans do, but I’ve somehow missed the Sesame Street demonization of Muslims in American children’s television, where an Amerrican Martyr-Me Elmo tells U.S. toddlers their duty is to kill those of the Islamic faith. Such programming exists in the Middle East, targeting Jews in general and Israeli Jews in particular, along with America. Should I begin paying more attention to what my daughter is watching, or are Bob the Bomber (”Can we kill them? Yes we can!”) and Dora the Exploder only constructs of his fevered imagination?

We have not seen calls from mainstream American Christian or political leaders to bomb Muslims communities within our nation, nor have we seen mass celebrations in the streets resulting from the murder of innocent Islamic school children when terrorists target them. Or perhaps when an al Qaeda terrorist blows up a market in Baghdad there are parades in Times Square, and the Times simply doesn’t see such demonstrations as newsworthy. Somehow I find that unlikely, even for the naked, one-sided advocacy journalism now so common at the Times.

It is a fact that in many Muslim cultures Jews are the target of a blind and irrational hatred, and their popular culture is primed, from birth to death, for xenocide. Somehow, we simply don’t see “America’s own equivalent,” hatred against Muslims outside the editorial bullpen.

Kristof’s argument is disingenuous and dishonest, but that doesn’t keep him from then equating this false construct to the very real racial bigotry that all of us hope remains confined to America’s past. As Kristof’s own research shows, “A 2007 Gallup poll found that 94 percent of Americans said they would vote for a black candidate.” Hopefully we are beyond a candidate’s race being a significant factor in American politics.

It is baffling that Kristof seems to need to stoke fears of another kind of bigotry in order to support his choice of presidential candidates, but that appears to be precisely his motivation.

Perhaps by keeping this demonstrably false claim alive he hopes to distract Americans from focusing on Obama’s many real shortcomings, including his record as being the most liberal Senator in the United States, that he does not recognize the right of self-defense and advocates banning entire classes of common firearms, that he would raise federal government spending by $287 billion a year (more than any other candidate), and that even his own campaign acknowledges he is not ready to lead.

Nicholas D. Kristof would rather accuse Americans of being bigots and put them on the defensive than have them examine the radical doctrinaire liberalism of his preferred candidate.

Kristof hasn’t told us anything about ourselves, but he has exposed a lot about how he would shape the views of his fellow Americans.