What could a Muslim religious scholar, possibly know about Jesus?

Nattering Naybob: Greetings, The Red Ranger. I assume you saw or heard of the so-called “interview” conducted by Lauren Green of FOX News, where she spent nearly ten minutes repeatedly questioning author Reza Aslan on why a Muslim was qualified to write a book about Jesus (“Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth”) or if he or she were qualified, why would they then write that book at all. The fact that Ms. Green holds the title of “Religion Correspondent” for FOX News makes her “questions” even more absurd.

Red Ranger, I know that every single media source or website that I link to or quote from, you think is biased or not valid, so this time I am going to annotate the story by linking to an article from the American Conservative.com, that refers to the “cringe-worthy” interview featuring a “misguided line of questioning”. As our President is fond of saying, “Now…let me be clear”, because this bears repeating: This article is from the American Conservative. Good for them for calling out FOX News’s totally transparent agenda of fear-mongering. The article links to the entire video of the “interview”, which lasts almost ten minutes but is worth watching if for no other reason than Mr. Aslan’s cool, calm, collected, yet firm, reaction to the whole fiasco.

The Red Ranger: OK, so I was wondering why would the Nattering Naybob get so worked up about this relatively innocuous, pedestrian interview, Then through a little detective work I realized that the radical left was all abuzz over this interview and commentary about it had popped up all over the liberal blogsosphere.  As is usually the case the left never fails to crucify anyone who dares to defend Christianity.  Here is a link to something found on FOX News.

So I will agree that maybe the interview did not live up to the exceptionally high standards that the FoxNews network has become expected to deliver it is still better than anything put out by the schlock, faux journalistic MSM.  I guess when you are the best, people are ready to jump on even the slightest misstep.

Nattering Naybob: As a tribe, you Republicans are nothing if not lock-step. As you all invariably do, you defend the actions of someone on the Right, or who espouses Right-leaning dogma in an offensive and intolerant manner, by saying that it is an “attack” or an attempt to “crucify” that person’s advocacy for that issue. For example, if someone on the Right makes a speech or posts a blog saying that there should be absolute unfettered access for all Americans to assault weapons, and a Liberal replies by saying that might not be a good idea, the Right-winger will say that the Liberal hates the Constitution, or that they are are soft on criminality, or that they are unfairly savaging the Right-leaning blogger in a partisan fashion.

So it is with this issue, Red Ranger, when you claim that Ms. Green was “defending Christianity”. Only you are wrong on two accounts, achieving a kind of propagandistic daily double. First, Ms. Green’s question about “why a Muslim should be writing a book about Jesus” had nothing to do with defending Christianity per se’. Instead it was yet another attempt to demonstrate a deep mistrust of all things Muslim, which has been FOX News’s stock and trade since September 11, 2001.

Second, and perhaps most important, it is not the anchor’s job to “defend” Christianity in the first place, it is her job to bring out points and ideas from the author’s book that will enlighten or educate the viewers. Ms. Green did none of that, and when the author suggested that she did not even read his book, she did not disagree with or correct him. Instead of giving Ms. Green the title of “Religion Correspondent”, why doesn’t FOX News just call her “Christianity Correspondent– or sometimes Judaism Correspondent When President Obama Calls For a Two-State Solutions and So Hates Israel”?

The Red Ranger: As usual the liberal left’s paranoia and insecurity comes through.  Has there ever been any group that is so completely and utterly inept at defending there positions or supporting why they have those positions.

How does posing a simple question demonstrate a deep mistrust of all things Muslim.  I suppose that if I wrote a book on Islam and was questioned by an Islamic reporter about why I wrote it then they would be demonstrating a deep mistrust of all things Christian just because they asked the question.

I didn’t realize that you had written Ms. Green’s job responsibilities.  Does your emploiyer know that you are moonlighting at another network?

Where do I begin?

Nattering Naybob: Frankly, I expected that coming up with my inaugural topic for this little blog of ours would be simple. Not so. The list of foibles of the Modern Republican party is simply too long to choose just one. I am reminded of the proverbial donkey who had in front of him two equally appealing bales of hay, could not decide which one to eat, and so starved to death. Not wanting to be that donkey (although I have been called a jackass once or twice in my day) I will simply provide a bullet point list of some of the themes I will be exploring over the coming weeks and months, at least in the “Politics” component of our mission statement:

-Modern Republicans suffocate us with their talk of Christianity yet propose policies that are in fact anathema to true Christian values.
-Modern Republicans actively seek to suppress voter turnout in the name of preventing “voter fraud” which has never been documented or proven to be anything more than statistically miniscule, if that.
-Modern Republicans lie (that’s right, you heard me The Red Ranger) when they say President Obama is a reckless tax-and-spender. In truth, both taxes and spending have declined since 2009.
-Modern Republicans proudly pander, and anoint as Party “thought captains”, such figures as Ted Nugent, Donald Trump, Wayne LaPierre, Joe the Plumber, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin.
-Modern Republicans consistently dismiss and demonize non-partisan data that disprove their shop-worn economic theories.
-Modern Republicans vote to prevent women from receiving equal pay for equal work.

I could go on. And, Red Ranger, I will.

The Red Ranger: Well, I see that Nattering Naybob is living up to his name as he has rolled out the standard Democratic talking points regarding the Republican party. I was hoping for a more pointed analysis complete with supporting data rather than bland statements that have not stood up to review. In many of these points I could easily change “Republicans” to “Democrats” and could include that as one of my topics. Maybe my next topic will be the following:

– Modern Democrats consistently dismiss and demonize non-partisan data that disprove their shop-worn economic theories.

The last item in your blog is one that is particularly troublesome as it clearly displays your inability to grasp the nuances of complicated economic realities. The Democrats roll out a number that says something to the effect that women earn 75% of what men make. While this is true in the aggregate when looking at all jobs across the entire employment spectrum, it fails to mention that when looking at the same job with similar responsibilities women earn similar pay to men somewhere in the range of 95% with the variation in pay normally due to experience level.

Nattering Naybob, do you really believe that companies keep two pay scales one for men and one for women? If so, please provide examples of these companies and I will be sure to boycott them. I believe, although I could be wrong, that when this bill was voted down it was because of many other items in the legislation and it was not just about equal pay.

Nattering Naybob: I thought Republicans hated the nuance of complicated situations. The Republican Thought Captains are always carping and complaining about how long Democratic bills are (they have this weird obsession with citing the page length of bills introduced in Congress). Your Vice-Presidential candidate of 2008 regularly dismissed nuance, in fact that was one of her main calling cards. I think she was naturally suspicious of anyone who had an education past the 7th grade. She seemed to think they would have been better served quitting school to learn some “Real American” skills like skinning and dressing a moose in under ten minutes, or shooting foxes and wolves from helicopters. But I digress. Regarding the bill that contained the latest “equal pay for women” clause, I have tasked the legislative working group of my crack research team, to determine what else was embedded in the equal pay bill. They are probably running their text recognition software right now as we speak. I should have the results shortly. Although in regards to this topic I should just simply invoke what I call “The Bugliosi Rule”. In my reply I will explain what the Bugliosi Rule is.

The Red Ranger: I find it funny that you always portray the Republicans as being the uneducated ones when in actuality it is the Dems who as a whole have the lower IQ’s. Outside of the few educated elites who run it, the Democratic party tends to cater to high school dropouts or illegal immigrants as their largest support base. These are the groups that rely on the government for their very existence so the Dems are all too happy to lock them into a lifetime of governmental support rather than letting them become self-sufficient.

I don’t know why you think Sarah Palin would have advocated dropping out of school when she herself was a college graduate. Once again you are making statements that have no basis in fact.

I think this is the second time you have mentioned your crack research team. As of yet, I have not seen any evidence of any research in any of your postings. Did you mean to say your crack smoking research team? Now that would be more likely coming from a Democrat as your leader is an admitted drug user.

Nattering Naybob: Glad you think I am funny. Mitt Romney supporters need all the laughs they can muster lately. Regarding your insults comments, many Republicans are themselves college grads yet they ridicule the idea of attending college (see “Santorum, Rick”). This is just another symptom of the GOP’s collective paradox, their collective illness, as some (me) would call it. Now, as for the “Bugliosi Rule” I referenced earlier. This is my name for the theorem advanced by Vincent Bugliosi, who of course prosecuted the Manson Family, and was an outspoken critic of the OJ Simpson trial outcome (the first one). He claims that certain facts are so obvious that even a minimum effort need not be wasted to prove them true. Such is the case with the fact that Republicans in Congress do not want women to receive equal pay for equal work, and, by extension, are anti-mother and anti-wife. In fact, on second thought, I am not going to bother to prove this, I have given my crack research team the rest of the week off, so they can go out into the community and spread the message of Obama-Biden 2012. Closing thoughts, Red Ranger?

The Red Ranger: I think you are trying to use the “Bugliosi Rule” to allow yourself to make unsubstantiated claims without having to provide one shred of evidence to support them. Republicans are anti-wife and anti-mother are just ridiculous comments since women are Republicans too.

So wraps up another installment whereby Nattering Naybob provides off-topic fictionalizations while The Red Ranger provides astute analysis.

Nattering Naybob: Boulderdash. I will leave you now to wallow in your Red Ranger-osity.