March 3, 2011 | National Review Online

Hillary: For the ‘Real News,’ Tune In to al-Jazeera

 Yes, she did say that. ABC reports (with video) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telling Congress that “viewership of al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news. You may not agree with it, but you feel like you’re getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news which, you know, is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners.”

 I wonder if anyone clued Mrs. Clinton in that among al-Jazeera’s most popular programs is “Sharia and Life,” starring Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading light. Millions of viewers regularly tune in to hear such real news as: that the punishment for homosexuality and adultery is death by stoning; that female genital mutilation is to be encouraged (though it’s not a requirement — that’s the moderate part!); that women invite rape by dressing immodestly; that Ayatollah Khomeini was right to order the murder of Salman Rushdie because he “disgraced the honor of the prophet [Mohammed] and his family, and defiled the values of Islam”; that Israel should be destroyed; that suicide bombing, even by women, is laudable “resistance”; that American soldiers and support personnel in Iraq should be killed to drive the U.S. out; and other pearls of wisdom.

I mean, is there any talking head on American television who is that informative? Who would sit through a million commercials when this kind of real news is just a click away, insha Allah?