Thursday, March 30, 2006

MW: Let's look at it this way. I mean, you're sitting back in a comfortable radio studio, far from the realities of this war.

HH: Actually, Michael, let me interrupt you.

MW: If anyone has a right...

HH: Michael, one second.

MW: If anyone has a right to complain, that's what...

HH: I'm sitting in the Empire State Building. Michael, I'm sitting in the Empire State Building, which has been in the past, and could be again, a target. Because in downtown Manhattan, it's not comfortable, although it's a lot safer than where you are, people always are three miles away from where the jihadis last spoke in America. So that's...civilians have a stake in this. Although you are on the front line, this was the front line four and a half years ago.

It’s wonderful that she’s free, but after watching someone who was a hostage for three months say on television she was well-treated because she wasn’t beaten or killed — while being dressed in the garb of a modest Muslim woman rather than the non-Muslim woman she actually is — I expect there will be some Stockholm Syndrome talk in the coming days.

MCGUIRK: She strikes me as the kind of woman who would wear one of those suicide vests. You know, walk into the — try and sneak into the Green Zone.

IMUS: Oh, no. No, no, no, no.

MCCORD: Just because she always appears in traditional Arab garb and wearing a burka.

MCGUIRK: Yeah, what’s with the head gear? Take it off. Let’s see.

…

MCCORD: Exactly. She cooked with them, lived with them.

IMUS: This is not helping.

MCGUIRK: She may be carrying Habib’s baby at this point.

Apparently Ms Carroll was treated like a princess by her noble and gentlemenly kidnappers, who snatched her up three months ago simply to protest the occupation of their country by the forces who liberated 25 million Iraqis from under the boot heel of Saddam Hussein. Such a selfless and, yes, painful, act by such a benign and caring and patriotic insurgency!

I mean, screw the millions of Iraqis who voted for democratic reform—impossible without the ouster of Saddam—these mujahadeen care about their honor, and the honor of their country!

Which begs the question: why did she come back? Seems like she had it made where she was. Figs. Fine silks. An all-around comfortable kidnapping, from all accounts.

—Unless, of course, she’s trying to cut in on some of that Cindy Sheehan “speaking Truth to Power” money. Big bucks in that, I hear.

Or maybe she was secretly blinking her fear and loathing in code during the video. After all, she was being interviewed by one of her captors, and it’s hard to tell with her face covered up like that…