Toronto Star Scribbler Judith Timson Thinks She Knows What Omar Khadr Needs Most--"A Friend"

I know--maybe Omar's influential lefty friends can put in a call to James Taylor. Heaven knows his "You've Got a Friend" performance has been used to help the down and troubled feel the love. Or, in a pinch, they could dress up Bette Midler in a burqa and trot her out to sing, "Cuz you gotta have friends..."

Speaking of Judith Timson, you just know she wants to give Omar a great, big hug, so he'll know he feels wanted despite that "vengeful" (Timson's word) Stephen Harper.

If I had to select the part of Timson's article that seems most deranged--like something from The Onion crossed with something from rabble.ca--it would have to be this:

Khadr’s story is above all a family story, in which his notorious Al Qaeda sympathizing father led the Toronto born teen, who, grew up, as Toronto Star national security reporter Michelle Shephard memorably wrote in her book Guantanamo’s Child, “memorizing the Quran and Green Eggs and Ham” into jihadism and to a fateful moment in Afghanistan when, only 15, he was alleged—and subsequently pled guilty — to having thrown a hand grenade that killed an American soldier. 

Ironically, sadly, profoundly, the man who died as a result of that thrown grenade, Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer, husband, father, U.S army medic and aspiring doctor, was 28 when his life was snuffed out. 

Now Omar Khadr begins life anew at that very same age. He gets a do-over while Speer does not. Is that, no matter how dubious the case, what sticks in Harper’s craw?

Hazarding a guess, I'd have to say that, yes, that is what sticks in Harper's craw. That and the fact that the left's fascination with and adoration of Omar is both creepy and demented.

Moreover, it could be that, like me, Harper is blown away by morally obtuse imbeciles who would lasso Dr. Seuss as a way to dredge up sympathy for Khadr by making his childhood sound at least halfway normal (see--he read Green Eggs and Ham just like our kids did), and who would describe the ironclad case against him as "dubious."

Timson is right, though, when she sees this as being, above all, a family story. But the mishpachah I have in mind is the Speers, a family that suffered incalculable and irremediable harm when Omar's grenade hit its target. And, as we know, that's an act that this cat in a hat was known to boast about--and that gave him great cachet with the other jihadis--during his Gitmo years.

To paraphrase Dr. Seuss: I do not like him, Judith T. I do not like him, no siree!