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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (96231)	1/21/2005 8:05:49 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 794181

NY Times Displays Odd Understanding of "Open and Liberal" By Bob Kohn Today's front page of the New York Times was a real ringer. My previous post concerned a hightly distorted NY Times/CBS News opinion poll. James Taranto focused today on a Times article that was kicked off by a front-page photo: "Islamic Pilgrams Bring Cosmopolitan Air to Unlikely City." Reporting from Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Times' reporter Hassan M. Fattah wrote of the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage: What really makes Mecca so open is its diversity, a product largely of the hajj, which for 1,425 years has been attracting believers from all over the world. . . . All that has resulted in an unlikely liberalism--not quite a Berkeley-style liberalism, but still a striking oasis of open thought and discussion in a world of hardened politics and interests. Increasingly, Meccans see themselves as a bulwark against the creeping extremism that has overtaken much Islamic debate. The caption under the front page photo described Mecca as "one of the most open and liberal [cities] in the Muslim world." I can't best Taranto's sense of irony, so I'll just have to quote him: Well, we love open and liberal cities; that's why we live in New York. The next chance we get, we're hopping on a plane to Mecca to check it out and see if it's as open and liberal as, say, Istanbul. Oh wait, we forgot. We can't go to Mecca. Under Saudi law, non-Muslims aren't allowed to set foot there. The Times has an odd idea of what "open and liberal" means. So much for the most finely edited newspaper in the world.