Elephant in the tent

The brilliant James Lileks is in top form as he skewers the new Showtime Series Sleeper Cell. In which the hero is a Muslim...but very few of the villains are Arabs.

"It's come to this: Hollywood confronts jihad and gives us 'Tommy,' a 'Causasian, all-American rich kid who reinvents himself as a Muslim extremist.'

Those kids today with their wacky reinventing, skullcaps on sideways, wearing their bomb belts hanging down so you can see their drawers. Yes, most all-American kids with lots of money can't see a hot sports car parked in front of a restaurant without wishing it would totally explode and like, completely kill all the hot chicks inside. If that's the true face of the threat, start rounding up the junior Kennedys and building them a wing at Gitmo. Something with a field so they can play touch football.

And now, to state the grindingly obvious: No, we don't need a series that shows Muslims as wide-eyed throat-slitters in headscarves and robes with green blood and vampire teeth. But to make the sleeper cell a multicultural affair not only strains credulity, it denigrates Islam. It suggests there is something intrinsic to the faith that attracts whackjobs from all walks of life. And it inverts truth, if such a thing matters.

The face of modern Islamist terrorism is mostly Arab. There are the Persian paymasters, of course, but the blokes doing the heavy lifting are mostly draw from Arab lands. Apparently it's unhelpful to note this in polite company. Or on soundstages. It's the elephant in the tent. And he's got a bomb!"

Truth? Peh! Who needs that? Sometimes all the PC nonsense makes people seem like they are from another planet. Read the whole thing.