Ted Rall: Al-Qaeda’s American Apologist

Ted Rall is a syndicated cartoonist whose work appears in many left-leaning alternative weeklies. He is also a political commentator whose essays are hosted by yahoo news among others. What makes Rall’s relatively mainstream acceptance so amazing is that he acts as Al-Qaeda’s de facto point man in the United States. In column after column, Rall spews his venom on America, declaring that in this war “We are the bad guys.” He refers to the indigenous Iraqi terrorists as “Iraqi patriots”, while rather affectionately dismissing the foreign Al-Qaeda fighter “naïve adventurers”. He defends the murder of police recruits by saying: “Cops who work for a foreign army of occupation are not innocent. They are collaborators. Traitors. They had it coming.” In a recent column, Rall shows himself to be not only a tool of radical Islamists, but also a person with an extremely warped view of American and Iraqi culture. In said column, Rall attempts to justify the terrorist attacks of the Iraqi insurgents by suggesting that Americans would behave in a similar manner if they were subjected to foreign occupation. During the course of the article Rall compares the Baathists of the old regime with the current Democratic and Republican parties, and the Bush twins with Saddam’s sons. I lack the time and inclination to pick apart all of the absurdities in the essay, and I’m sure any readers of this site will be able to demolish it with relative ease.

I have always laughed off the notion of a “liberal media” as being a delusion used by American conservatives to dismiss any criticism leveled against them by the press. Stuff like this makes me reconsider this opinion. Every time a conservative commentator like Bill O’Reilly or Pat Buchanan says some offensive, the mainstream media is on it like white on rice. But guys like Rall seem to get a pass. Can somebody provide me with an explanation that allows me to avoid admitting the conservatives might actually have a point on this issue?