Taqiyah: The practice of concealing one’s beliefs and foregoing ordinary religious duties when under threat of death or injury. — www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/011-taqiyya.htm

IN THE ISLAMIC FAITH, deception, either Taqiyah or Kitman — in Islamic jurisprudence, the art of making ambiguous or deceptive statements — is permitted under certain very specific circumstances.

As words evolve their original meaning may change or expand, attaining new usages. Taqiyah is one such word. In common usage, Taqiyah today refers to the use of deception as a religious or political weapon. It is the political form of Taqiyah to which I refer when I say that such lying without embarrassment or repercussion has become a too-often-used tool — indeed, the de facto policy — of the left.

Several recent examples serve to confirm this:

The first came to light as Judith Miller, the disgraced New York Times reporter, was making promotional rounds for her new book. In interviews she shed further light on the persecution of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney whose trial has been described by historian Arthur Herman as: “(what) may be one of the most disastrous cases of prosecutorial misconduct in history.”

If ever there was a “phony scandal,” it was the Valerie Plame-Joe Wilson debacle that ensnared Libby. To refresh memories: Plame was well known inside the Beltway as an employee of the CIA. But to the Bush haters this information was immaterial to achieving their desired goals: to humiliate the president and the vice president.

Miller was among those subpoenaed by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald during the subsequent grand jury investigation. She writes that her testimony was deceptively manipulated by Fitzgerald; as Herman writes, “Fitzgerald’s real quarry was Vice President Dick Cheney. Fitzgerald obsessively pursued Libby for supposed misstatements to the FBI and a grand jury in hopes that (he) would roll and say his boss sent him out to leak Plame’s CIA identity. Twice, Miller says, Fitzgerald told Libby’s lawyers he would drop the charges if Libby would lie and rat out Cheney; each time they said no.”

Fitzgerald, purportedly politically independent, has gone after politicians of both parties. But since he knew the truth of who outed Valerie Plame, and he doggedly pursued men innocent of the crime, he apparently had no interest in the truth or in justice. His actions are indicative of a practitioner of Taqiyah: deceiving others to promote a cause. His victory was attained — but justice was not served — when Libby went to prison.

Another high-profile example of lying without facing the full repercussions began last November when Rolling Stone magazine published a piece titled “A Rape on Campus” that described an alleged gang rape at a college fraternity party at the University of Virginia. Under the ensuing scrutiny the fabricated story quickly fell apart; on April 5, Rolling Stone issued a mea culpa: “We would like to apologize to our readers and to all of those who were damaged by our story and the ensuing fallout, including members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and UVA administrators and students.” 

Rape is a serious crime, one that has deservedly moved to the forefront in terms of preventive activism. But this attempt to shock America into action may backfire, as Rolling Stone concedes:

“It is important that rape victims feel comfortable stepping forward. It saddens us to think that their willingness to do so might be diminished by our failings.” 

The magazine was correct, albeit belatedly, in retracting and apologizing for the story. Rolling Stone will justifiably be sued and likely will settle rather than drag this out further. But what is most troubling is that neither the author of the piece, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, nor the editors involved have been disciplined. It should trouble all honest people that such deceptions are tolerated and excused.

Writing in Politico, Julia Horowitz, editor of UVA’s student newspaper, defended the acceptance of the story:

“There was something in that story which stuck. And that means something. The University of Virginia — like most American universities — has a problem with rape. Current estimates, cited earlier this year by Vice President Joe Biden, hold that one in five women will be sexually assaulted while in college. That means that in my 200-person politics lecture, roughly a full row will be filled with survivors. In my 20-person major seminar, there are at least two. That is not a calculus I should have to work out in the margins of my Marx-Engels reader.”

Even in the defense of a fabrication, Horowitz, who apparently is not a math major, continues a Taqiyah like deception, specifically the “one in five” statistic from the vice president. Regarding that stat, Washington Post Fact Checker stated: “Readers should be aware that this oft-cited statistic comes from a Web-based survey of two large universities, making it problematic to suggest that it is representative of the experience of all college women.”

But perhaps the most egregious example of the use of a falsehood to gain political advantage resurfaced last week. The reader may recall that during the last presidential election campaign Sen. Harry Reid, while on the floor of the U.S. Senate, stated:

“The word’s out that he (Romney) hasn’t paid any taxes for ten years. Let him prove he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t.”

Harry Reid may be a lot of things, but ignorant of the Constitution is not one of them. He knows that Article I, Section 6 (www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec6.html) allows him to make slanderously false statements without fear of legal repercussion.

In a recent interview with Fusion TV’s Jorge Ramos, Reid proudly discussed his use of Taqiyah: “I have no repentance, because the issue was important. Of course he paid taxes. What he didn’t do is let us see his tax returns.”

Prevarication is part and parcel of politics. But one has to wonder: If leftist policies or goals are a positive for the nation, why do they depend so extensively on Taqiyah?

French philosopher Joseph de Maistre is credited with saying: “Every country has the government it deserves.” The nation, having become completely inured to habitual deceit, will continue to be led by people completely lacking in honesty and integrity.

So on that basis, maybe the country is indeed ready for Hillary.

Dennis Lund is a mechanical engineer who lived in Benicia for more than 20 years.