It appears that CNN has decided to respond to the outrage regarding the Paula Zahn hit-piece about atheists. Richard Dawkins will be a guest for what appears to be a one on one interview with Paula Zahn tonight at 8PM CST.
While this is a good thing, a question does remain. Why Richard Dawkins? Yes, he is a rather infamous atheist, but the fact of the matter is he’s English. Having him in a follow-up piece to a show where two anti-atheist American bigots not only excuse, but seem to support the persecution of atheist Americans seems a bit off.
To me this seem to be a way to erase the actual victims whose persecution Karen Hunter and Debbie Schlussel continue to defend as acceptable with Ms. Schlussel kicking it up a notch by referring to atheists as “future Muslim extremists”.
Consider for a moment that Professor Dawkins is considered to be one of the leading Militant Fundamentalist Atheists on this side of the pond. The entire premise for persecuting atheists is that we’re the ones that are on the attack and the nice theists are just defending themselves.
While I appreciate Professor Dawkin’s willingless to take on American fruitcakes, I have to say that I believe that an American atheist such as Lori Lipman-Brown should be the one appearing in response to the blatant bigotry of Hunter and Schlussel.
CNN’s apparent insistance on him being the one to respond to this smacks of being more about ratings than any actual remorse about the tarring of American atheists on one of their broadcasts.
UPDATE:ÂÂ Not only has the show been bumped until tomorrow night due to Anna Nicole Smith’s death, Richard Dawkins interview has been cut to four minutes and the “discussion” panel will consist of two Christians and Christopher Hitchens as the token atheist.
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Yeah, you get the feeling Dawkins fulfills America’s love for evil English villains.
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