Poor Andrew Coyne resumes live blogging the Mark Steyn Show Trial:
“Still in the line-by-line dissection of Steyn…
“Now we’re reading the ‘of course’ passage, which has been a peculiar object of fascination througout the hearing. This is the one where Steyn specifically disavows generalizing his concerns to all Muslims. But here it’s interpreted to mean that he is. I’ll reprint it here, so the reader can judge:
Time for the obligatory “of courses”: of course, not all Muslims are terrorists — though enough are hot for jihad to provide an impressive support network of mosques from Vienna to Stockholm to Toronto to Seattle. Of course, not all Muslims support terrorists — though enough of them share their basic objectives (the wish to live under Islamic law in Europe and North America) to function wittingly or otherwise as the “good cop” end of an Islamic good cop/bad cop routine.
“My own interpretation of those ‘of courses’ are that Steyn feels he shouldn’t have to even say them — that a criticism of some Muslims should not open him to the charge that he is talking of all Muslims, but that since it probably will, he will wearily spell it out explicitly.
“Fat lot of good it did him.”
