"White Mullahs" and "Black Mullahs"

One of the sicknesses that infects todays mainstream media is its penchant for inapt comparison, founded on the premise that there is no right and wrong, no "us" or "them." Recently, for example, both Chris Matthews and Brian Williams have compared terrorist in Iraq to America's founding fathers. Another example dates back to the election of Pope John Paul II:

The Western press gave the Pope extensive coverage [upon his return to Poland in 1979]. Adam Michnik, speaking from the secular left, thought that the Westerners made far too much of what [he] regarded as a bizarre analogy; between the Pope's return to Poland and the Ayatollah Khomeini's return to Iran. It would not, however, be the last time that the press tried to draw analogies between the "white mullah" and the "black mullahs." In "Witness to Hope," by George Weigel.

And by their fruits ye shall know them.