Note: Every time I think this piece is done, there’s new revelations about Major Hasan, and a swift denial from the left that it means anything. I’d better post this before we find that Hasan had slipping away every few months to have a torrid affair with Bin Laden in a cave somewhere. Even then it would be wrong to bring it up, since it wouldn’t prove he was motivated by ideology, and might smack of homophobia.

What I wrote Monday:

The Texas Army base shooting has made some people pull a sheet over their head so they can’t see the obvious: Ft. Hood Hood, Syndrome, if you will. Every time I think I’ve found a nifty example. something else comes along. After the news that the shooter had attended the mosque run by the imam who had ties to the 9/11 guys, someone I follow on Twitter said:

I used to attend the same church as a serial killer. Does this make me guilty by association?

No. It does not. Thanks for playing.

It in a way, it’s a perfect post, if you’re looking for Ft. Hood Hood Syndrome defined: the paucity of facts is matched by the self-assuredness of the dismissal. And it’s sarcastic to boot! Pwned!

Of course it doesn’t make one guilty to go to a church attended by a serial killer. But if you like this church because the padre praises serial killers, was on another country’s most wanted list because of his support for serial killers, was associated with the greatest act of serial killing in the country’s history, was watched by the FBI, and you chose him to perform your mother’s funeral, AND he praised you after you became a serial killer and told others to follow your example, well, yes, people might see a connection . . . somewhere, I don’t know. You’re right. It’s all very murky. We may never know.

That’s the new line, I guess: Islamaphobia is bad enough, so let’s not compound it with guilt-by-association. Can’t wait to see how this person responds to the ABC report about Hasan’s attempts to contact Al Qaeda, but we all know how that’ll play out: well, he didn’t succeed, did he? So there.

(Shortly after I wrote that, the ever-dependable Chris Matthews was wondering whether trying to get in touch with Al Qaeda was a crime. I’d say “you can’t make this stuff up” but obviously you can, if your mouth has been running ahead of your brain for so long it’s sending you postcards from the other side of the planet.)

* * *

What I wrote Sunday:

Cartoon in the morning paper: the bony fingers of the Grim Reaper passes a bloody baton marked “Fort Hood Horror” to a beastly hand marked “Fear and Prejudice.” Says the owner of the claws: “I’ll take it from here.”

So let us ask: where did he take it?

It’s the cartoonist’s way of getting in front of all the reprisals en route, the witch trials – my heavens, do we really need to go through that again? Didn’t putting on “The Crucible” in high school theater class teach us anything? It hasn’t happened, of course, and it’s not going to happen, but it COULD happen, and in some alternate world where Americans are just more honest about their true character, the night sky glows with burning mosques. But without any dispatches from the planet Rethuglican, they have to content themselves with the knowledge that they’re better people than their theoretical adversaries.

If Puritianism was once the suspicion that someone, somewhere is enjoying themselves, multiculturalism is the suspicion that someone, somewhere, is holding Islam responsible for something besides algebra.

That has to be it, because the left certainly isn’t inclined to admire the religion itself. They’ll permit atheists to criticize religion, because they’re so good ‘n’ hardcore about EVERYONE, man – why, a good uncompromising atheist is like the left’s Ayn Rand. Testify! There are no doubt discomforts on the left with Islam, but that’s all they are. There will be an uncomfortable moment when gay marriage is legal, and a lesbian couple sues an Islamic adoption agency for discrimination; there might be a moment of confusion when leftists ask themselves why they never see a rainbow flag and an EVERYONE WELCOME sign outside a mosque, like you do with every other urban Protestant church – does Islam have different flags to indicate they’re gay friendly? – but all this is deemed irrelevant, because . . . well, because it is, that’s all. Talking about Islam is a distraction from the real problem of Christian fundamentalism, and assuming the Ft. Hood’s shooter’s motivations had anything to do with Islam is Islamophobia. So there.

Does it work both ways? If someone on the left hears there’s been a shooting at Planned Parenthood, does their mind automatically extirpate any speculation about the theological positions of the murderer? If they learn that someone shot up a GLBT counseling center, and later learned he was an unhinged Mormon, would they insist that it’s the height of intolerance to look into his church, and tie it all to the anti-Prop 8 effort? Of course not.

There’s a bumper sticker I see on my drive home every other day: “ISLAM IS THE ANSWER.” For many on the left, well, that depends on the question.

And don’t ask the question!

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