This “controversy” over Doubleday reminds me of Byron York’s NRODT cover story this summer, which pointed out that the MSM was refusing to show videos of 9/11. “The moving pictures of the September 11 attacks — surely the most powerful of the television age — have virtually disappeared from American life,” wrote Byron. And he concluded on this note:
And that is ultimately why the question of the September 11 video is important. It is far easier to argue that the War on Terror is about oil, or empire, or Halliburton, when you simply don’t show what it is really about: the attacks of September 11. Americans won’t forget that day. But as it recedes in time, they may lose the visceral feeling they experienced as terrorists struck at the centers of American power and killed 3,000 people. Showing that horrifying video would remind people of just how they felt — and of why the War on Terror goes on.
I think the same principle applies to an “Al Qaeda Reader.” This is a book we can use.