Remember this the next time you see a report by Ayman Mohyeldin. The man NBC sends to report on doings in Muslim countries around the world can't say which extremism—Christian, Jewish or Muslim—poses the greatest current threat to civilization.
When Joe Scarborough posed that very question to the NBC reporter on today's Morning Joe, Mohyeldin punted. Instead of talking about current threats, Mohyeldin reached back almost 1,000 years, countering with talk of the Crusades.
New York Times reporter Nick Confessore rode to Mohyeldin's rescue, interjecting that "global warming" represents the real threat to global civilization.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Let me ask you this, though. Let me push a little further just to make people uncomfortable, what's a greater threat to civilization, Christian extremism, Jewish extremism or Muslim extremism?
AYMAN MOHYELDIN: To civilization?
SCARBOROUGH: Yes.
MOHYELDIN: Around the world at all times?
SCARBOROUGH: Writ large.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Good luck answering that.
SCARBOROUGH: That's just not a hard question to answer, is it?
MOHYELDIN: How much time do we have?
SCARBOROUGH: That's pretty easy.
MOHYELDIN: Joking aside, again, you're looking at a very specific time in the history of humanity. What about when the Crusades were taking place invading the world --
SCARBOROUGH: No, no. I'm talking about 2014. I'm not talking about over the past 1,500 years. Because, obviously, you know and most educated people know that the Muslim world was responsible for great advances that we still are benefiting from today, that built on -- western civilization built on the Renaissance. We understand that. But in 2014, what's the gravest threat to civilization right now?
MOHYELDIN: I would not say any of those. I would not say radical Islam is the greatest threat to civilization today.
SCARBOROUGH: What is?
NICHOLAS CONFESSORE: Global warming.
SCARBOROUGH: Says the man from the New York Times.
