On her MSNBC show today, Alex Wagner found it "surprising" and "distressing" that some were seeing the attack on the Canadian Parliament by a Muslim convert as a "terrorist act." Wagner was joined by CAIR's Nihad Awad who said that anyone claiming "that there is an Islamic component" in the attack shows either "ignorance or hostility" toward Islam.
Another guest claimed the attack was "much more like ordinary crime." Right. No Islamic extremism here. Zehaf-Bibeau was probably just planning to get the Members of Parliament to empty their pockets.
Why does the liberal media have such an apparently vested interest in denying Islamic terrorism even when it stares them in the face? Back in 2010, NewsBusters noted an MSNBC host "hoping" that the Times Square bomber would not turn out to have ties to Islam. He of course did.
Note the fair-and-balanced panel assembled by Wagner (whose recent wedding President Obama attended): the Executive Director of CAIR, and someone whose major claim to fame is defending Guantanamo prisoners.
UPDATE: Alex might be cross with Chris Matthews. On Hardball tonight, Matthews spoke of the attacker's "jihadist purpose." Distressing!
NIHAD AWAD: I'm saddened to see that many media commentators and politicians are using the Islamic point here by saying he converted to Islam, he reverted to Islam, that there is an Islamic component in it, and I believe this shows either ignorance or lack of information, lack of knowledge about Islam itself. Had the religion of this individual been not Islam, it would not have been an issue.
. . .
ALEX WAGNER: There are a few folks who in the aftermath of this have said well wait a second, there is a difference between someone who is a terrorist and someone who is a deranged, unhappy person with a gun and yet it has been surprising, I think, to see even Josh Earnest at the White House say, considered it a terrorist act and I guess from a sort of constitutional, civil liberties, rights perspective, how distressing is that?
SHAYANA KADIDAL: Right, right. It shows how far we are from any coherent notion of what the word terrorism means. It's really just a watch word for we should intervene overseas and, you know, a whole bunch of other things connected with that.
WAGNER: And the inextricable link between what some folks see as one religion and if that religion is associated in a violent act it then becomes an act of terror.
KADIDAL: Sure. Terrosism, Islam, overseas intervention, military response: right? Whereas this seems much more like ordinary crime, someone with a troubled past, a history of run-ins with the law and drug problems and so forth.
