Amid late 2010's snowstorms and champagne toasts, most folks likely missed a truly stunning comment by a high-profile U.S. journalist. Katie Couric's words epitomize the ignorance and politically correct blindness that befall too many of America's media elite.
In a CBSNews.com year-in-review discussion, the "Evening News" anchor lamented that "the bigotry expressed against Muslims in this country has been one of the most disturbing stories to surface this year."
She complained about "this seething hatred many people feel for all Muslims."
Couric added, "Maybe we need a Muslim version of 'The Cosby Show' . . . I know that sounds crazy. But 'The Cosby Show' did so much to change attitudes about African-Americans in this country, and I think sometimes people are afraid of what they don't understand."
With apologies to chickens, ostriches, and other feathered creatures, Couric's comments are multifariously bird-brained.
Does Couric truly believe that Americans were so prejudiced, and yet superficially so, that Bill Cosby's program substituted decades of bias with an era of ethnic enlightenment?
The enormous audience of "The Cosby Show'' would have been far smaller from 1984-92 absent the grueling and often deadly civil-rights work of such heroes as Rosa Parks; the Congress of Racial Equality's murdered Freedom Riders, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney; and, of course, the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Couric's comments seem blissfully detached from the clear and present danger posed by Muslim zealots.
"A Bill Cosby show for Muslims?" asks House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y. "That wouldn't allay the concerns of liberals such as Attorney General Eric Holder who says he stays 'awake at night' because so many young Muslim-American men are becoming so radicalized that they are taking up arms against our country."
Yes, Katie, it would be lovely if a Muslim "Cosby Show" (perhaps titled "al-Qasbi") were an ecumenical love bomb. Alas, it probably would enrage the very bombers who should tune in.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism reports that at least 21 militant Muslims were convicted on or pleaded guilty to federal terrorism charges in 2010 alone. While most American Muslims peacefully practice their faith, Islamic extremists in their midst thirst to spill blood, usually on American soil:
- Last February 22 and April 23, respectively, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay pleaded guilty to supporting a foiled September 2009 al-Qaida plot to bomb New York City subways.
- May 26: Hosam Maher Husein Smadi pleaded guilty to attempting to bomb Dallas' 60-story Fountain Place tower.
- June 21: Faisal Shahzad pleaded guilty to parking a thankfully dysfunctional car bomb outside "The Lion King" in Times Square on May 1.
- Aug. 2: Russell Defreitas, aka Mohammed, and Abdul Kadir were convicted of conspiring to detonate jet-fuel tanks and pipelines at New York's JFK Airport to incinerate property and passengers.
- Sept. 23: Aafia Siddiqui was convicted of attempted murder and assault against American personnel in Afghanistan. She was arrested with a 2-pound jar of sodium cyanide and a computer thumb drive bearing, among other things, descriptions of New York City landmarks.
- Oct. 18: James Cromite, aka Abdul Rahman, converted to Islam in prison. He and three others were convicted of conspiring to blast a Bronx synagogue and use Stinger missiles to demolish military planes at New York's Stewart Air Base.
Shallower than Saran Wrap, Couric uttered not a word about this. She sees the real threat as average Americans with a "deep-seated hatred" of "all Muslims." Yet, these supposedly bigoted monsters somehow denounced the proposed ground zero mosque loudly, yet peacefully.
Indeed, New York state's latest data show that among 683 reported hate crimes in 2009 (before the mosque fracas), 11 (1.6 percent) targeted Muslims, while 251 (36.7 percent) focused on Jews.
In Los Angeles, Jews endured 88 percent of hate incidents; Muslims 3 percent. Perhaps NBC should air "The Cosbowitz Show."
None of this appears to occupy Katie Couric's head. But then again, what does?
Deroy Murdock is a columnist with Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. E-mail him at deroy.Murdock@gmail.com