Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
The recent death threat left on a jihadist website against TV funny man David Letterman is raising the question of whether or not all religions should be off limits to comics, many of whom are well-known for their regular Church bashing.
Townhall.com is reporting that the death threat against the CBS talk show host David Letterman was discovered by the Site Monitoring Service (SMS), a private intelligence organization that oversees online activity. The post, discovered Tuesday of this week on the radical Muslim shumukh al-Islam forum, was posted by a contributor who identified himself as Umar al-Basrawi. The post referred to comments Letterman made in June after a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan killed al-Qaida leader Ilyas Kasmiri.
Al-Basrawi claimed Letterman was referencing both Osama bin Laden and Kashmiri in his remarks although he never addressed them by name. Regardless, al Basrawi said Letterman had “put his hand on his neck and demonstrated the way of slaughter.”
Al Basrawi then put out a call for someone to “cut the tongue of this lowly Jew and shut it forever” much like El Sayyid Nosair who was convicted in the 1990 killing of Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane. Letterman, however, is not Jewish.
“The concern is that there is someone who will read it, agree with it and say, `I want to be the Sayyid Nosair of 2011 and kill David Letterman,'” said Adam Raisman, an analyst for SMS.
The FBI is also looking into the threat, said Jim Margolin, spokesman for the bureau’s New York office. “We take every potential threat seriously,” he said.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue notes that after the death threat was made, Letterman has “gone mum”, something he ought to do regarding his disapaging remarks about all religions. Donohue is suggesting that Letterman issue the following statement immediately:
“Though I never mentioned Muslims or Islam in my June 8 monologue, I received a serious death threat from al Qaeda. This has forced me to reconsider the propriety of my humor about religion.
“I have come to the conclusion that it is wrong to smear an entire religion and its clergy, which is why I am going to stop bashing Catholic priests. For too many years, I have taken wild swipes at priests, generalizing from the particular to the collective. I don’t do this to any other demographic group, and I shouldn’t do this to Catholic priests, either. Just because Catholics don’t threaten to cut off my tongue, break my neck, or put a hit on me, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t respect their religion. Ethics alone demands they be treated like, say, Muslims.”
Donohue adds: “Bad as Letterman has been, he is positively saintly compared to Jay Leno. It would be great if both men, especially Leno, took this opportunity to stop with their sweeping generalizations about Catholic priests. It shouldn’t take a death threat to bring them to their senses—it should simply take common decency.”
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