July 6, 2010
CNN Editor Mourns and Respects a Promoter of “Resistance” and Terror
Daniel Halper at the Weekly Standard found a doozy of a Twitter post on the Fourth of July by Octavia Nasr, CNN's senior editor of Mideast Affairs. "Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah," she wrote. "One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot."
I know enough about Fadlallah, who died at the age of 74 in a Beirut hospital over the weekend, that I can interpret her Twitter post charitably. While once known as the "spiritual leader" of Hezbollah, Fadlallah later moved above and beyond the Party of God and even criticized it once in a while. He supported the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and its leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but he also criticized Khomeini's regime of Velayat-e faqih — rule by Islamic jurists — and declared it an inappropriate political system for Lebanon. He supported women's rights, dismissed their unequal treatment as "backward," and issued a fatwa condemning "honor" killings.
Most Americans don’t know this about Fadlallah, or have even heard of him. Octavia Nasr surely does, though. It's common knowledge in Lebanon. She lives in Atlanta, but she was born in Beirut, and covers the Middle East for a living. More likely than not, some or all of the above is what she had in mind when she posted her comment on Twitter.
Still, she's talking about a man who issued theological justifications for suicide bombings. He threw his support behind hostage-taking in Lebanon during the 1980s and the truck bombings in Beirut that killed more American servicemen than any single attack since World War II. Nasr didn't mention any of that. It doesn't even look like she factored it in.
Read the rest in Commentary Magazine.
Thank you for your short essay about Octavia Nasr. I had been thinking of asking you about her praise for Fadlallah.
I do also, as you wrote, "find it alarming that a senior editor of Mideast Affairs respects and mourns the loss of a man who supported the kidnapping, murder, and truck bombings of hundreds of her adopted countrymen — and that she said so on the Fourth of July — even if she mourns and respects him for entirely different reasons and does so despite, not because of, his positions on “resistance” and terrorism.
She owes her audience — and perhaps also her employers — a candid explanation at least."
What about:
1. He didn't really mean it.
2. You have to take his comments in context.
3. Who cares what the West really thinks?
I suspect the average American consumer of news would find it alarming that a senior editor of Mideast Affairs respects and mourns the loss of a man who supported the kidnapping, murder, and truck bombings of hundreds of her adopted countrymen — and that she said so on the Fourth of July
Alarming? Hardly. Sadly, these days it would be de rigueur.
I don't think many expect anything else from the people who populate the "push" media which is why their influence is waning as people simply stop paying any attention to what they have to say.
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/06/nasr-explains-controversial-tweet-on-lebanese-cleric/
Sort of off-topic: Why isn't this on Pajamas Media? And why is everything after February 11th gone off your Pajamas Media blog?
Not that it really matters. Do you know anyone who really watches CNN on purpose anymore? Sure, it is on in some public venues, but I haven't seen anyone watching it in their house for quite some time.
Technical issues are still being worked out. We're not going live over there until everything here is exported correctly.
