The moist, nourishing soil of Islam.

For the government and the media, it has long been an article of faith that we needn’t trouble ourselves with articles of faith … if the faith in question is Islam [Defcon 1 if it's Christianity, of course]. . . .

. . . [Jihadist] ideology indisputably springs from Islam. For that reason it has cachet and it has not been rejected out of hand even by the many faithful who regard it as an outdated, hyper-literal radicalism. And for that reason, a certain percentage of Muslims . . . will embrace it.

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My friend Bill Bennett likes to quote Hannah Arendt’s aphorism, “Nothing so inoculates a person against reality than the hold of ideology.” If we want to understand why we are at risk from cells in places like Cherry Hill which have no ties to known foreign terror groups, and if we want to learn what authentic, moderate Muslim reformers are up against, we need to open our eyes to what motivates Jihadists.

"Fort Dix Jihad: The Media Misses the Point." By Andrew C. McCarthy, NationalReviewOnline, 3/9/07 (emphasis added).