CONDESCEND AND CONSENT
For the record, I rarely, if ever watch CNN or Fox News on Television. As far as I’m concerned, my time would be just as well spent watching WWWF (wrestling), in that the interviews are hardly any better than what one reads in the tabloids available for sale, as you proceed to checkout at the supermarket.
Last week, CNN’s Ashleigh Banfield interviewed Jeffrey Lord, former Ronald Reagan White House administration official and current Donald Trump supporter. Ms. Banfield sought to draw a comparison between Syrians currently looking to apply for American visas and Jews from, let’s say Israel, looking to apply for American visas during the time period of 1980 through 1985, when members of the Jewish Defense League or JDL were responsible for a number of bombings in this country. Two such events occurred when the JDL allegedly carried out bombings of the Aeroflot offices in Manhattan on January 13, 1980 (credit for the attack was initially taken by Omega 7, an anti-Castro Cuban terrorist group and the JDL. Later, a man purporting to be a JDL officer denied the group had any part in the attack, but said “we applaud” the bombing.) as well as bombing of the Aeroflot offices in Washington D.C. on February 17, 1983. If Ms. Banfield had the ability to think clearly, and was capable to make apt comparisons, she would have realized that if the JDL posed any threat, it was to the Soviet Union, not to the United States.
Before making reckless as well as odious comparisons, can the inciteful (this is no spelling mistake on my part. Ms. Banfield has yet to show me that she is in any way insightful) Ms. Banfield point to any synagogue here in the United States or in any other country for that matter where rabbis shout “death to America” from the pulpit? Better yet, why compare Syrians with Jews, when Ms. Banfield, provided it isn’t beyond her mental capability, could have put together an excellent story questioning the wisdom of letting Syrian Muslims into this country, when the United States, the great beacon of freedom should be focusing its efforts on Syrian Christians and Yazidi who are being targeted and in some cases tortured and killed by Syrian Muslims. Instead of making asinine comparisons between Syrians and Jews, would it be asking too much of Ms. Banfield, as well as the majority of our politicians who appear to suffer from the same stunted mental development, to focus in on Syrian minorities who are truly in harm’s way?
Last, but not least, one would do well to wonder, why Ms. Banfield did not reach out to a newsworthy Muslim. That way, the entire interview could have been immediately shifted away from the United States and visas to Israel and work permits. The Muslim guest could have pointed out how Israel treats Arabs in such an intolerable, inhumane fashion. And should Ms. Banfield have suffered from a momentary lapse of moral acuity during the interview, and asked if such treatment also applies to Christian Arabs living in post 1967 territories, someone such as your truly could have pointed out that that the Muslim Arabs already took care of the Christian problem, so that it no longer exists.
In all fairness, I suppose Ms. Banfield was doing the best she could, under the circumstances. What really irks me and hopefully you as well, is why in the world, did Jeffrey Lord condescend and consent to the interview in the first place?