Kristof is on target on "Is this America?"

Usually, Nicholas Kristof's columns just depress me because of his "in your face" reports on godawful things around the world. So much so that whenever I see the word "fistula" I can only think of Kristof!

His latest column, however, is about the American scene. About the obscene and loud blatantly anti-Muslim rhetoric.  Kristof opens with a reference to a blog post in The New Rpublic:

Written by Martin Peretz, the magazine’s editor in chief, it asserted: “Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims.”
Mr. Peretz added: “I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.”
Thus a prominent American commentator, in a magazine long associated with tolerance, ponders whether Muslims should be afforded constitutional freedoms. Is it possible to imagine the same kind of casual slur tossed off about blacks or Jews? How do America’s nearly seven million American Muslims feel when their faith is denounced as barbaric?

I read that last night, but blogged only about the other op-ed I read there--because I was that pissed with Friedman's column!

In a way, it proved to be for the better, because there is at least one leading commentator who has weighed in as well--James Fallows notes in his blog that:

I can't at the moment think of another mainstream publication whose editor-in-chief has expressed similar sentiments -- whether about Muslims or blacks or Jews or women or any other class -- and not had to apologize or step down. Or a national political figure: compare this with Trent Lott's objectively milder statement about Strom Thurmond, which cost him his job in the Senate leadership. Peretz can of course say whatever he wants. It's a free country, and he is entitled to the "privileges" of the First Amendment, much as I might think he is abusing them here. But Nicholas Kristof has set an example of people stepping up to say: That's him, not us. This representative of "us" is entitled to say what he chooses, but we think he's wrong, and on this he does not speak for us. 

I am glad that Kristof and Fallows are using their megaphones well, particularly on this issue of a virulent anti-Muslim sentiment ... As Kristof writes, "sweeping denunciations of any religious group constitute dangerous bigotry."  

I was once a faithful reader of TNR--but that was back when Michael Kinsley was there.  To some extent, I guess I have been following Kinsley a lot, even without realizing it!  Oh well ... I am not a TNR subscriber anyway.  And this hateful blog post by its editor, and its warmongering articles mean that I might not even care to scan through the magazine in the library.