On Sunday’s Inside Politics, left-wing CNN’s John King mischaracterized statements made in August by President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser regarding the “cancer” of Islamism.
Speaking at the Ahavath Torah Congregation synagogue in Stoughton, MA, on August 23, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn made a clear delineation between Islamism and Islam, describing the former as a subset of the latter.
Below is the quote aired by CNN:
We are facing another ism, just like we faced Nazism and fascism and imperialism and communism. This is Islamism, and it is a vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people on this planet, and it has to be excised. We should not fear this idea. We should define it clearly, and we should go after it.
Various left-wing and Democrat-aligned media outlets have coalesced around a narrative to controversialize Flynn, presenting the retired military man as unjustifiably bigoted against Muslims and Islam.
Neo-Marxist news outlets pushed the aforementioned narrative. The Guardian described Flynn as a “Muslim-baiting ideologue.” The Intercept accused him of pushing “anti-Muslim rhetoric.” Salon alleged that he pushed “anti-Islam conspiracy [theories].” Vox declared him to be “afraid of Muslims.” Talking Points Memo described Flynn as an “anti-Muslim national security adviser.”
Qatar’s English-language propaganda arm Al-Jazeera joined the above-listed left-wing and Democrat-aligned new media outlets in forwarding the coordinated framing of Flynn as unjustifiably bigoted against Muslims and Islam.
Flynn has implicitly called for a change in legal perceptions of Islam. Rather than viewing Islam entirely as a religion, he has joined the likes of Andrew C. McCarthy in calling for legal approaches towards Islam as an ideology.
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