Standards? They'll Have a Double

The audio of the Keith Ellison victory speech on Tuesday is just now getting wider exposure, through the alternative media. I heard it for the first time on the Jason Lewis show last night and now Power Line has linked to the audio.

The frenzied shouts of Allahu Akbar! ringing through the Minneapolis night air doesn't seem to be of much interest to the mainstream press in town. If asked, I'm sure they'd assume the Alfred E. Neumann position and refer to the official story about how it is merely an expression of praise among one of the many communities making the city such a beautiful tapestry of diversity. Something along the lines of the Wikipedia interpretation:

... a common Arabic expression, which can be translated as "God is Great," "God is Greater," or "God is the greatest."

This phrase is recited by Muslims in numerous different situations. For example, when they are happy or wish to express approval, when an animal is slaughtered in a halaal fashion, when they want to praise a speaker, during battles, and even times of extreme stress or euphoria. The term has gained relative infamy in the eyes of some Westerners, who only encounter it as a battle-cry of Muslim terrorists.

All right, so maybe the crowed dug Ellison's speech, maybe the preparation of the halaal appetizers had begun in the kitchen, maybe one of the many other conditions for uttering the word among the Muslim fundamentalists was being met.

But surely you have to understand "some Westerners" for their associations of the term with things of a more sinister nature. Because some Westerners may remember that the term is also used intentionally to intimidate. No less a practitioner of the art than Mohammed Atta said as much in his instructions to the 9-11 hijackers on what to do when the carnage began on those ill-fated airplanes on a September, now seemingly so long ago:

When the confrontation begins, strike like champions who do not want to go back to this world. Shout, 'Allahu Akbar,' because this strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers. God said: 'Strike above the neck, and strike at all of their extremities.' Know that the gardens of paradise are waiting for you in all their beauty, and the women of paradise are waiting, calling out, 'Come hither, friend of God.'

Using that term at a campaign rally in this country is a problem. And it's news to any rational observer, except apparently those running the monopoly news outlet in Minneapolis.

Actually, according to prior Star Tribune standards, it's news any time a candidate's political and religious beliefs intersect. Michele Bachmann attempted to speak in a church to her fellow Christians about what compelled her to enter the political arena, one of her dedicated band of stalkers captures the video, and the compliant Star Tribune splashes it across their editorial page and cites it as the reason she is unfit for office, calling it "an embarrassment."

Another leftist Internet provocateur digs up a relic of Lutheran animosity from the Reformation and it is used repeatedly by the Star Tribune to smear Bachmann as a religious extremist. WCCO TV even got into the action with this opening salvo from Pat Kessler:

Religion and politics. That has crept into this campaign over and over and over again. The Minneapolis-based Star Tribune reports today, Senator, that the church you belong to is affiliated with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod which, it says, regards the Roman Catholic Pope as the Antichrist. Is this true? Do you share the views of your church? And, why should any Catholic in the 6th District vote for you if it is true?

You'll note that no such question was ever asked of Keith Ellison during the campaign. And the media wouldn't even have to go back to the 16th century to find examples of his faith having some "problems" with Catholics or (INSERT ANY OTHER RELIGION HERE).

I guess it's not fair to say Keith Ellison never had to face this same scrutiny. The intrepid press did address this way back on September 13 with this exchange with award winning journalist Wolf Blitzer on CNN:

BLITZER: I know, have been reading a bit about your background. You converted to Islam while you were in college from Christianity?

ELLISON: That's right. Yes, sir.

BLITZER: What made you decide that you wanted to embrace Islam?

ELLISON: It was a personal religious choice.

BLITZER: And that was that. And you've obviously made some major changes over these many years in your attitude. What about this other issue that's come up? You are also going to make history by becoming the first African American to be elected to the U.S. Congress from the State of Minnesota assuming you win?

Moving on now to Kirstie Alley's new diet plan ...

The double standard applied to the campaigns of Michele Bachmann and Keith Ellison have been brazen and breath taking, even for long time observers of media bias. Can you imagine the huffing firestorm of controversy the local press would have whipped up if Michele Bachmann's victory speech would have been greeted with calls of "Praise the Lord" or "Hallelujah!" from the assembled at GOP headquarters in Bloomington Tuesday night.

Why do our cultural elite demonize and denigrate the fruits of their own Western culture, like Christianity, while turning a blind eye and coddling the crimes and excesses of others? This week Thomas Sowell asks the same question and also provides the answer:

How can a generation be expected to fight for the survival of a culture or a civilization that has been trashed in its own institutions, taught to tolerate even the intolerance of other cultures brought into its own midst, and conditioned to regard any instinct to fight for its own survival as being a "cowboy"?