One of our stable of in-house trolls impulsively invented one of the most fascinating new expressions that I’ve seen in months: “jihad privilege.” I gasped the moment I saw it and was internally all, like, “DUDE! Did you really mean to put such a verbal instrument in my hands?” It is glazed in 25-carat pure irony.
Very early on after the Boston bombings, there were media reports that it was a young man from Saudi Arabia who was the main suspect. This man, injured in the blast, was apparently kept under guard at a hospital and his apartment searched.
But it turned out that there was nothing. The act of not actually being involved in the bombing — surely an egregious use of his jihad privilege. You’d think that he would have the decency to be the Arab Muslim to supply the eagerly anticipated perpetrator, but no, he had to exercise jihad privilege, and not be the suspect. But at least his jihad privilege has immortalized his name as a man who had the temerity not to be a killer. He will probably have to go back to Saudi Arabia, because there are enough nutbars who will now just assume, for the rest of his life, that he had something to do with it, which the police have now entirely denied.
In the meantime, mass media has been repeatedly melting down with false alarms in suspects. It’s amazing to behold. It’s just the logical conclusion of the style of “journalism” that gets things from “inside” “sources” and runs them for the headlines. We have reached Peak Headline.
Now yet again there are headlines from “sources” that there is some sort of video ID of possible suspects, but no names. Who knows? Maybe there won’t be anyone caught for this. Maybe there won’t ever be anyone caught for this. No one has “claimed responsibility.” No manifestos have been published. Perhaps it’s just someone’s horrible installation art project, working in the medium of mangled limbs and lives. Or maybe a suspect will be found tomorrow. Maybe that person will be carrying a Jihad Privilege(tm) platinum card. Or maybe not.
As a species, we have a terrible time with uncertainty.
EDITED TO ADD: Here’s the latest in gun-jumping to find “dark-skinned” suspects. By the New York Post, for the nth time in a row. This time apparently a young American citizen has been tarnished. I mean, really?
