Not the useful kind. No, I mean the reasoning, such as it is, that informs statements like this:
How much weight does a bearded mullah carry in a freewheeling liberal society like Norway's?There you go! Case closed.The country's well-known Muslim comic, Shabana Rehman, decided to find out Tuesday when she lifted the founder of Iraq's Ansar al-Islam terrorist group off the ground before a startled audience.
"If a small woman like me can lift him up, he can't be dangerous," Ms. Rehman said Thursday by telephone from northern Norway.
Kurds, stop your bleating; Mullah Krekar can't be that dangerous. Oslo, thanks for letting him go--and hey, Norwegians, don't worry yourselves too much over those 1400 pounds of missing dynamite. He can't be that dangerous. Spain, leave the poor man be. Not dangerous. Besides, he says he's no longer head of Ansar al-Islam and, well, who could doubt the sincerity in that face? Not dangerous!
Really. If you can't trust the authority of a female Muslim comic, what can you trust?
You absolutely misunderstand Shabana (who isn't a believing Muslim, btw). She is being very very subtle in her comments, and are allowing Mullah Krekar to make a fool of herself on his own.
I cover the story here:
http://blogs.salon.com/0001561/2004/04/30.html#a5168
Bjørn Stærk covers it very well here:
http://www.bearstrong.net/warblog/000683.html
I read the Staerk article while researching the links to this one, but don't see what bearing it has on Shabana's remarks, although I do take his point that the whole performance might knock some sense into Norwegian multi-cultis.
My point is that it shouldn't take a comedian to "make" him look foolish--and I'm not even sure "foolish" is what he should be made to look in the first place. The man has done enough to seal his reputation as a fundamentalist nutcase on his own, and the kind of people who need performance art to remind them of that simply haven't been paying attention.
Can't argue with that. It's a sad state of affairs.
HEy I see a trend here. A lot of histories worst megalomaniacs were little guys. Napoleon of course, and from what I can recall Hitler was a tad wee in stature as well.
Wonder if anyone ever picked them up?
But this does raise a hindsighted idea in my head in regards to Presidential hopeful Howard Dean. Why didnt someone pick him up and try and end the "angry" persona? I think it could have done wonders. The left is all about fuzzy logic. lol