Come home Bobby Jindal
On Jan. 10, a Fox News guest – Nolan Peterson – proclaimed that France is awash in so-called “No-Go zones,” where Muslims have taken over, and not even French Gendarmes can patrol the streets.
Peterson claimed “I’ve been to Afghanistan, Iraq and Kashmir (in India) – and at times it felt like that in (Paris).”
Peterson announced that there are 741 “No-Go zones” throughout France.
He was slightly off – by 741 “No-Go zones.”
France has no such “No-Go zones.” There simply aren’t any enclaves of jihadists, freely recruiting the next suicide bombers, while operating just beyond the grasp of powerless police.
Fox News, though, never bothered to check Peterson’s ridiculous claim, and host-after-host repeated it. Gleefully, almost happily – they repeated it.
Then came another so-called “terrorism analyst,” Steve Emerson, who upped the “No-Go zone” ante.
According to Emerson, Birmingham, England is “totally Muslim,” and it’s “where non-Muslims simply don’t go in.”
When Emerson pulled that non-fact from wherever non-facts are pulled, it caused British Prime Minister David Cameron to label Emerson “a complete idiot.”
That’s probably because (according to the most recent census data) Birmingham only has a 22 percent Muslim population.
Fox News still clung to the clunky narrative that Al-Qaeda is taking over Europe, one city at a time, until French media outlets launched a campaign that discredited their foolish claims.
One French TV show, Le Petit Journal, openly mocked Fox News, by sending its reporters to the so-called “No-Go zones.”
Those reporters interviewed some inhabitants of the areas in question, but none of them had even heard of the so-called “No-Go zones.”
Finally, Fox News decided it had had enough. Fox News hosts began apologizing for their shoddy reporting. It became an apology-fest.
That should have put an end to the breathless, hyperbolic, handwringing about Muslims cutting broad swathes out of cities across Europe.
Enter Bobby Jindal.
He’s the Republican Governor of Louisiana, who’s apparently looking to launch a presidential campaign.
Jindal needed an issue.
He found one.
He traveled to England and gave a prepared speech at a British think tank, in which he claimed that some immigrants are trying to “colonize Western countries, because setting up your own enclave and demanding recognition of a ‘No-Go zone’ are exactly that.”
Did he just say “No-Go zone?”
Jindal hadn’t gotten the far-right memo. That all of that nonsense about “No-Go zones,” had been debunked, repudiated, been the butt of jokes, and had produced some mighty sincere apologies.
When pressed by a reporter to disclose the whereabouts of any Muslim-based “No-Go zones” in England, Jindal launched into a fit of verbal tap-dancing.
“I knew that by speaking the truth we were going to make people upset,” he told a CNN reporter.
Not only wasn’t it established that people were particularly upset about what he’d said, there wasn’t a hint of truth in it anyway.
Jindal was merely taking his show on the road to Europe and getting his face on American TV sets.
Ronald Reagan admonished Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down that wall,” while standing at the Brandenburg Gate near the Berlin Wall in June of 1987.
John F. Kennedy famously told West Berliners “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner) at the same Berlin Wall in June of 1963.
And more recently, presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama told hundreds of thousands of Berliners, “People of Berlin – people of the world – this is our moment. This is our time,” in June of 2008.
Reagan, Kennedy and Obama each traveled from the United States to Europe to impart their messages of freedom, and hope for a better future.
January 2015 – Bobby Jindal in England?
There are Muslims under all of your beds.
Jindal’s defense has been that “far-left radicals” want to pretend the problem doesn’t exist.
Well, just about everybody – including Fox News – admits the problem DOESN’T exist.
There are no “No-Go zones,” except in Bobby Jindal’s head.
It just might be time for Bobby Jindal to come home.
He’s embarrassing himself, and it’s quite clear he’s definitely not quite presidential timber.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net