Translation: Maybe it's awkward and inconvenient, at least to a high-profile media liberal reluctant to condemn those poor, horribly misunderstood jihadists.
As is her wont, Rachel Maddow likes to schmooze with late-night television hosts as part of MSNBC's strenuous efforts to brand as a major brainiac who lives to pontificate about politics.
This past Friday, Maddow appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon less than 24 hours after the now-weekly Islamist mass-casualty event, this time in the seacoast resort of Nice, France.
After the requisite pleasantries, Fallon asked Maddow to Weigh In On What Happened. It wasn't long before she said something all too revealing --
FALLON: I have a lot to discuss with you ...
MADDOW: A lot going on.
FALLON: ... there's a lot going on, I mean, the awful terrorist attack, obviously in France last night. Do we know any new news from that or not?
Label this picayune if you will, but "new news" makes me cringe. Fallon is clearly a devotee of Maddow's show, to the point of parroting her frequent use of this inane redundancy --
MADDOW: Not really. I mean, the main thing that everybody was thinking about initially was, was it one person acting alone and as far as we know at this point, we still think it was one person acting alone, or at least they haven't named other people. They also want to know if he was either directed by or inspired by some terrorist group. They know of, at least thus far in the investigation, they haven't talked about any connections like that or any signs that he was radicalized ...
Right -- aside from the very last thing this monster ever did, no signs at all that he was radicalized. Poor guy just happened to get into a horrible, unusually drawn-out "truck crash," at least according to NBC's initial reporting. Pay no attention to his actions en route to the 72 virgins, nothing to see, folks.
MADDOW: His dad says he was a little nuts, uh, said had some mental health issues. So, I mean, honestly we don't know much about the perpetrator. Maybe that's not important. I mean, maybe the most important thing is how many people lost their lives ...
FALLON: It's just awful.
Imagine a different scenario and ask whether Maddow would be quite so dismissive -- right after the rampage in Nice, French authorities discover that the perpetrator was an active member of the National Front, a conservative political party invariably described in media as "far right." Moreover, he was wearing a hat embroidered with a slogan, roughly translated, as Make France Great Again.
Let me guess, you're having a hard time envisioning Maddow shrug off this perpetrator's motive, at least if you've ever listened to her for more than a few minutes. Au contraire -- the background of the perp would now be imbued with earth-shaking significance, the inflexible template for MSNBC's breathless coverage. The network would jump into action on a documentary focusing on the troubling connection between conservative politics in Europe and homicidal maniacs in general.
Maddow's lame attempt to change the subject is reminiscent of something equally disturbing in a Daily Beast story yesterday by Christopher Dickey, under this memorable headline -- "Nice Attack: Has a Bisexual Muslim Hustler Put France on the Path to Civil War?" Dickey quotes French security officials warning that their country is on the verge of widespread unrest in the wake of endless terrorist attacks --
Two months ago, the head of France's General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), Patrick Calvar, warned a commission at the National Assembly that after the January 2015 massacres at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and at a kosher supermarket, and then the Nov. 13 carnage at Paris cafes and the Bataclan concert hall, followed by the related attacks in Brussels, society is at a tipping point. And the problem is not just with Muslim extremists, but with anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant extremists on the "ultra-right."
"Europe is in great danger," Calvar said in testimony on May 10. "Extremism is rising all over and we are -- we, the internal security forces -- are in the process of redeploying resources to focus on the ultra-right that is waiting for nothing but a confrontation."
If the nation known for centuries as France still exists a decade hence, historians in what's left of the West will look back at 2016 as the tipping point when French security forces focused on those "waiting" for a fight instead of those repeatedly engaging in mass murder.
