Fourth Estate, Fifth Column

American as apple pie!

As a recovering journalist, I cut the mainstream media too much slack. I've been desensitized, and I'll admit it. But rarely have I been more thoroughly pissed at the idiocy of the biz than I am right now.

I'm talking about the survey of American Muslim opinion conducted by the Pew Research Center. Everyone's talking about it today, so I'm not here to react purely to the findings. It's the reporting thereof that has me dreaming of a suicide bombing at the New York Times building.

Headline, in today's Fresno Bee:

U.S. Muslims assimilated, optimistic
Poll finds that vast majority do not back bin Laden, terrorism

To recap, the poll reports -- with insanely positive spin here in this widely run Washington Post story -- that...

...21 percent of the 2.35 million Muslims in this country openly support or refuse to condemn the use of suicide bombings as a political tool.

...about 1 in 4 "said they do not think that Arabs were responsible for the attacks."

...9 percent of black Muslims expressed a favorable attitude toward al-Qaida. Just 36 percent held a very unfavorable view of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization.

...64 percent of foreign-born Muslims hold the same "very unfavorable" position.

The article paints all of this with a "glass is half full" optimism.

"What emerges is the great success of the Muslim American population in it's socioeconomic assimilation," said Amaney Jamal [a Princeton professor and] senior advisor on the poll.

Doesn't surprise me a guy named Jamal considers it a "great success" that 493,500 Muslims already here are somewhat or fully okay with suicide bombings. Or that a Princeton professor's notion of assimilation is 36 percent of foreign-born Muslims refusing to even anonymously condemn Osama bin Laden here in their new home nation.

Nor does it remotely surprise me 1 in 4 of those 2.35 million fifth columnists disavow 9/11.

But the American press has truly reached new heights of cooperation with the enemies of the United States and mankind in glossing over all this.

Ann Coulter nailed it in a recent piece on the ascendancy of pro-U.S leaders in Europe:

"The Democratic Party is now officially the only organization on Earth that does not take the threat of Islamic fascism seriously. Between the Democrats and the media, America has gone from its usual position as the world's last hope to radical Islam's last hope."

A gratuitous jab at the Democrats on my part? Not really. The poll also found that Muslims, though socially conservative, vote Democrat by a margin of 6 to 1.