Politics

Steyn: Media will downplay Boston bomber-Muslim link, same as Ft. Hood, underwear bomber

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
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On Rush Limbaugh’s Friday program, fill-in host Mark Steyn reminded listeners of Limbaugh’s Tuesday comments predicting the media would “circle the wagons” for Islam if it turned out that the suspects in Monday’s Boston Marathon bombing Muslims, saying that the prediction will come true.

As it turned out, the suspects Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were indeed Muslims, and Steyn, author of  “After America: Get Ready for Armageddon,” said the media wagon-circling would begin “any moment now.”

“As we now know, these guys are Muslim,” Steyn said. “One of them was Muslim. He’s dead — he died in the early hours this morning. The other guy, still on the lam, is Muslim — Muslims from Chechnya. And so, as usual, any moment now we’ll start to hear, ‘Oh well, these are just lone wolves,’ as Rush said. ‘They’re not typical of anything.’ None of these guys are ever typical of anything.”

Steyn reminded his listeners of the media reactions to other terrorist attacks tied to Islam, including U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was accused in the November 2009 shooting of 13 people and wounding of 29 others; the so-called “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear on Christmas in 2009; and the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, who was a Pakistani-American citizen arrested for an attempted May 1, 2010 car bombing.

“None of these guys, none of these lone wolves, none of these lone wolves stretching as far back as the eye can see, are ever typical of anything,” Steyn said. “We don’t know that any of these lone wolves belong to the United Amalgamated of Lone Wolves and Isolated Extremists. They’re all just one-offs — all jihad is local.”

Steyn compared that to the treatment of conservatives when anything else as happened, even if there isn’t necessarily a direct link to conservatives.

“[I]f some guy shoots up a grade school, even if he has nothing to do with the NRA and he has nothing to do with the tea party and he’s not the father of Sarah Palin’s youngest child, he is nevertheless, those people are nevertheless responsible for the entire conservative movement. Sarah Palin, NRA, tea party is always responsible and that is why we need to gut the Second Amendment.”

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