Is It Queer To Say I Can See Taboos In Action?

"We got to thinking about the similarities with the Fort Hood story--but then we went back and read some of the contemporaneous coverage of ["D.C. sniper" John Allen] Muhammad's crimes and were struck by the differences.

For one, although Muhammad and Fort Hood suspect Nidal Hasan were both Muslims, Muhammad was a convert who had joined the Nation of Islam, an eccentric American sect that focuses on racial (black) rather than religious supremacy. Most of the reports on Muhammad's execution omit the Nation of Islam connection, leaving the impression, among those who've forgotten it, that Muhammad is just another Muslim.

Some have detected in the Fort Hood coverage a return to a pre-9/11 mindset, and there is some truth to this. In particular, the left-liberal tendency to stereotype servicemen and veterans as psychopaths, suckers and victims is a return to form. But the bending over backward to explain away the role of religious fanaticism in the Fort Hood massacre is, it seems to us, something new--something distinctly post-9/11, or post-post-9/11.

Politically correct sensitivities have, of course, long been with us. But as we noted Monday, journalists and political leaders really seem to be going to extremes to avoid acknowledging the evident religious motivations for Hasan's alleged crimes."

-- James Taranto, seemingly baffled by the ever-widening parameters of this dangerous NewAge culture - as he should've been a long time ago - so I found even this coverage a little soft, and a little late, for The Wall Street Journal.