The elephant in the living room.

Instead of pointing out how, in what ways, Islam flatly contradicts the letter and spirit of Western, advanced democracy, Bush tried to slander those who raised such matters by describing as “racists” those who thought that “Arabs aren’t ready or capable of democracy” (or words to that effect). He missed, he keeps missing, the part about Islam. Yet this is the central part, the huge part, the unavoidable part of the story. He will not look at it steadily and whole, but instead keeps trying to keep up this pretense that bringing “freedom” to “ordinary moms and dads” in the Middle East can be done, and makes sense from the viewpoint of American, and larger Infidel, interests.

And in the same way, domestic terrorism is treated so that we are forced to endure the spectacle of senators and FBI agents, and others who should at this point know better . . . telling us that the whole damn thing, with the Fort Dix plotters, is just a mystery. We can’t figure it out. We are “working with Muslim organizations” to “get a handle” on this, or to find the “trip-wire” that sets people off, that “radicalizes” them. The “trip-wire”? The goddam “trip-wire”? What sets people off, if they are Muslims, could be any real or imaginary slight or setback or injury, whether it is personal or political -- loss of status, job, spouse, confusion as to what to do after college, dawning realization that Muslims are not in this land lording it over non-Muslims, as by rights they should, and so on and so forth.

"A Mad World, My Masters (or, Islam Foreign and Domestic, or Domestic and Foreign)." By Hugh Fitzgerald, Jihad Watch, 5/12/07 (emphasis added).