At 6:35 A.M. EDT today, talk turned to the CNN series "God's Warriors," a classic exercise in moral equivalence. Hosted by Christiane Amanpour, the series focuses on extremists in Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
Earlier today, Hall had watched the segment on Jewish extremists. Scarborough called CNN on its moral relativism.
JOE SCARBOROUGH : I'm sure we're going to find that there are Jewish and Christian organizations, international terror networks, that are set on the destruction of entire civilizations as we find in the Muslim world.
That's when Hall began to rise to CNN's defense.
View video here.
TAMRON HALL: I think they were careful. They kept bringing in the Muslim aspect of it. They're trying, they're fighting a delicate dance here. You know that, because they know that people like you are ready to say "are you insane?, what's going on here, the terrorists . . ."
SCARBOROUGH: The way they're promoting this, they're promoting this as "God's Warriors." And there is a moral eqivalency argument here, that somehow there's extremism in all religions, and somehow it's all equal. It is the Rosie O'Donnell argument that we should be just as nervous with Christian extremism as Muslim extremism.
HALL: I don't think that's what they're implying. I don't think that. I can't speak for . . .
SCARBOROUGH: It's certainly what it looks like in the advertisements.
A bit later:
SCARBOROUGH: There is a big, big difference between me believing that Scientologists don't have the way to heaven, and me going out and blowing up Scientology centers. And that right now is what separates Muslim extremists from Christian and Jewish extremists.
That's when Hall took her argument one giant step further . . .
HALL: But is it fair to ask the question "how long does that separation exist?" Because you never know who the next [terrorist] group [will be]. I'm not saying that [a few additional unintelligible words]."
It sure seemed that you did.
ASIDE: Her defense of CNN aside, Hall, who often mentions her Texas Bible Belt background, comes across affably. In a surfeit of sensitivity, she repeatedly spoke of "Jewish people" rather than "Jews." It's OK, Tamron, we're happy to be called "Jews." You Christian people should feel free to do so ;-)
