WITH GOD ON YOUR SIDE, WHO NEEDS THE FACTS? Kirsten A. Powers wrote a piece for TAP Online on the pope controversy that is, in part, a rebuttal to my essay, "Benedict the Bombthrower". Powers misrepresents my work as a defense of the violence perpetrated by some Muslims in the name of God, and accuses me of partly blaming the U.S. for the murderous and abusive actions of Islamic theocracies. Hers is a tactic more commonly used on the right: State that someone said something she clearly did not, then berate her for having supposedly said it.
An honest rebuttal would have taken on my interpretation of the pope's speech, which is what my piece was about.
Anyone who read my essay knows that I in no way condoned the violent reaction to the pope's comments. My commentary simply takes the pope to task for pouring, in an apparently deliberate manner, gasoline on smoldering coals, and it sets his words into context, assessing actions by the West (not just the U.S., as Ms. Powers asserts) that ignited those coals long ago, and which have since kept those coals stoked. I do indeed hold the pope accountable for the practical results of his rhetoric, just as liberals, including (perhaps) Ms. Powers, hold the Bush administration responsible for stoking, as outlined in the just-declassified National Intelligence Estimate, the rage of jihadists to the detriment of the American and Iraqi people.
