So many are urging the so-called liberal media to pay attention to the Ohio Muslim teenager who fled to Florida for fear her Pakistani-born parents might harm her for converting to Christianity. Yes, cover it, but be fair in your loud outbursts for equitable coverage of all religions and their practitioners. As if Islam and Muslims are not vilified enough in the news! By way of example, I haven’t seen much fanfare about what should have been the most explosive story of the year: prominent U.S.Congressmen belonging to some sort of a Christian cult in D.C. called C-Street House or the family. Ever since Harper’s magazine did a story on this entitled Jesus Killed Mohammed by Jeff Sharlet who also wrote the book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, I’ve seen little on this in a few shows like the Rachel Maddow Show and Real Time with Bill Maher, but as important and ground-breaking as these shows can be, they’re preaching to the choir. The more mainstream media didn’t think this was big enough story, even when prominent U.S. representatives like Mark Sanford, John Ensign and Tom Coburn, and many others believe they are the "chosen" people to lead the country and reclaim the world for Christ. I know that the lines between church and state are frequently breached in the United States, but I can't understand why the media are not persistent in covering what appears to be flagrant and extremely dangerous instances of unconstitutional governance and divisive religious politics.


So the sudden death of Michael Jackson hypnotized the media in this country for weeks on end (NPR said recently that there has been more coverage of MJ’s death in three weeks than the war in Afghanistan got in a full year!), but the story linking Christian fundamentalism to the centers of power, notwithstanding its incredible drama and scandal (what the news feeds off), fails miserably to pick up any steam. The staged shouting in healthcare reform townhall meetings and the spectacle it created have easily lured a ratings-hungry newsmedia which has lost touch with its mission and responsibility to the public. If not more interesting, the “Christian sect, politics and the military” story is more revealing about the state of mind which has governed this country for eight years and is responsible for the chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan and by extension is the root cause of this country's huge deficit and recent economic woes. But we have to wait 100 years to tell that story. As the Moroccan saying goes: “A camel never sees its own hump”.