Some right wing bloggers wish journalists died rather than "converted"

OK, this is just too bizarre. Apparently, some right-wingers are attacking the FOX News journalists who survived kidnapping and who "converted" to Islam at gunpoint. Greewald has the story. "Conservative" (a la Colbert) Jon Swift expresses his disappointment that the journalists did not die. He points to several conservative bloggers who claim (from the confort of their keyboards, I suspect) they would have died rather than renounce Christ. Go follow the links; it's a wacky world over there. Some in the righty blogosphere go so far as to attack the integrity of the kidnapped journalists for submitting to their captors demands for conversion. Here's Greenwald quoting David Warren:
And the two Fox journalists, whom I will not stoop to name, begged for their lives even though, in retrospect, their lives probably weren't in danger. . . . Men without chests, men without character, men who don't think twice.
[Emphasis Greenwald's.] Warren goes on to argue that by saving their own skin, these two journalists showed how weak the West is:
They didn’t make [the video of their conversion] for face value. They made it to show the whole Muslim world, via satellite television, what wimps these Westerners are. That they’ll do anything at all to save their lives, that they don’t think twice about it. That is the substance of most Islamo-fascist propaganda: that the West consists of straw men, of men without chests, of men easily pushed over.
Pardon me, but I think saving your life is a good thing. People who would rather die than make a meaningless gunpoint "conversion" are to be mocked rather than applauded. It is this very willingness to die in order to score religious propaganda points that is an enormous part of the terrorist problem. Let me say something that shouldn't have to be said: It is better to be alive than to be dead. It's sad enough that we have to defend that statement against the ideology of suicide bombers. It's even more pathetic that we have to defend that statement against the chest-puffery of American bloggers. People who toss their lives aside as part of some grandiose gesture don't impress me. Journalists who go to dangerous areas to cover important stories do, regardless of their politics or the politics of their employer. So welcome back, Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig. I'm glad you're alive, and I'm glad you did what you had to do to stay alive.

Yes, there are exceptions to the "It is better to be alive than to be dead" rule, but they are few and far between (e.g. Terri Shaivo's situation). This case isn't one of them. Throwing your life away to impress the likes of David Warren is not a course of action that can receive Internal Monologue's stamp of approval.

UPDATE: Atrios links to the Greenwald post and gives these right wingers their proper label: wankers. (Note that I use the term "wanker" purely in its blogospheric insult form. I have no quarrel with the activity that provides the root word from which this insult is derived.)

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