"Gentle loner" or "rabble-rouser"? Just don't call them terrorists.

"Gentle loner" or "rabble-rouser"? Just don't call them terrorists.

by digby

Ask yourself what kind of manhunt would be on if this guy were Muslim:

After tracing the cross-country movements of a menacing anti-Muslim rabble-rouser from Arizona, the FBI took the unusual step of issuing an alert to New York law enforcement agencies to look out for him, sources said.

The FBI got involved after a Muslim group based near Albany notified the agency that Jon Ritzheimer, 32, of Phoenix had posted a video on Nov. 18 in which he showed a gun, made profane anti-Obama statements and said he was driving cross-country to confront them, sources and a group spokesman said.

Agents were able to talk with him initially, but two days later, when he was in Scranton, Penn., he got angry and cut off communication with them. At that point, the alert, citing a “potential threat to law enforcement,” was issued, sources said.

Ritzheimer, a former Marine, has made threats against Muslims a personal cause. He has organized an armed protest at a Phoenix mosque, threatened to “arrest” all senators who voted for President Obama’s nuclear pact with Iran, and encouraged all Americans to carry rifles in public.

I'm glad they're on the look-out, but if his name were Mohammed and this alert went out, do you think the news media would have been on it? I think they would have.

Meanwhile, The New York Times described the Planned Parenthood attacker as a "gentle loner":


They later removed the word "gentle." But the overall assumption in the press is that this was just some crazy loner guy whose political agenda is not to be taken seriously because he just a crazy loner guy. Except for all the Planned Parenthood attacks, bombings, and murders over the years, they might even be right.

It's obvious that we cannot describe white Americans as terrorists no matter what they do. FBI chief James Comey refused to characterize that Charleston killer Dylan Roof as a terrorist. Very few right winger have been even been willing to speculate that a man who shot a dozen people in a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic and said "no more baby parts" might have been politically motivated, much less a terrorist.

This anti-Muslim nutcase who is threatening to kill Muslims and threatens to "arrest" Senators is just a tabloid story. It's a good thing they aren't over-publicizing his threats and making him into some kind of superman monster because that's what he wants. But then, so does ISIS and that never stopped them from fearmongering 24/7.

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