Unhinged: Exposing Conservative Extremists Gone Wild

 

SOMEHWHERE, OPRAH IS LAUGHING. For her too-big-for-her-britches protege is caught at the center of a firestorm set by political extremists, American-style.

I'll keep it short: Rachel Ray's latest pitch for Dunkin Donuts was yanked from the airwaves after two extremist bloggers claimed the scarf she was wearing in the ad signaled sympathies for Arab terrorists.

"The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad,’’ wrote conservative commentator Michelle Malkin on her blog. ‘‘Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant and not-so-ignorant fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons.’’

Malkin's skewed view of a boogeyman wrapped in every headdress was promoted by Jewish advocate and blogger Pamela Geller, who wrote on May 18th that Ray was a "Dunkin Donuts jihad tool".

And if you buy that one, here's the heads-up that there are throngs of terrorist sympathizers hanging out at every mall in America. Or perhaps, as the shrinks will tell you, sometimes a scarf is just a scarf. It's overwrought conspiracies like these that cause political sympathizers to lose patience.