"IF China or Iran threatened our national credit rating and tried to drive up our interest rates, or if they sought to damage our education system, we would erupt in outrage.
Well, wake up to the national security threat. Only it’s not coming from abroad, but from our own domestic extremists."
Deploring the elimination of federal aid to "Reading Is Fundamental," a nonprofit program that provides books to "low-income children" [sic], and other educational programs by Republicans, Kristof concludes:
"So let’s remember not only the national security risks posed by Iran and Al Qaeda. Let’s also focus on the risks, however unintentional, from domestic zealots."
Wow! A columnist from a national US newspaper is lumping Republicans together with al-Qaeda. Query: Are exasperated New York Times readers now justified in countering this "national security threat" by bombing the 2012 Republican National Convention or murdering Tea Party leaders with well-aimed bullets to the head?
Obviously, Republicans would argue that unsustainable federal deficit spending has spiraled out of control under the Obama administration and in effect has already taken the US over Kristof's "cliff," but Kristof's lumping of Republicans with international terrorists does not leave room for reasoned debate.
Sure, Kristof's incendiary language comparing Republicans with al-Qaeda is protected by the First Amendment, but it doesn't belong on the op-ed page of The New York Times.
On Friday we saw where fanaticism can take persons charged with irrational emotion. Words can kill. Shame on Nicholas Kristof. Shame on The New York Times.
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