Lee Smith: The Western Press and Hezbollah - Two, three, many Nasrs. - '...This infatuation with Hezbollah has been going on for years, and it's not just because the party established a formidable style of press criticism by kidnapping journalists back in the '80s. The U.S. media actually likes Hezbollah--it is an impressive thing, after all, to be able to kill your enemies--whether they are Jews or fellow Lebanese--whereas liberalism, non-violent resistance, rule of law, and opposition to political murder lacks sex appeal. Let's not forget that since the February 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri the U.S. media had tended to dismiss the Cedar Revolution as insufficiently authentic. The multi-sectarian coalition was not, in the eyes of most American journalists, made up of "real" Arabs, like Hezbollah; rather, it was a "Gucci" revolution. This is the political milieu in which Nasr worked--and there's no upside to being a Lebanese Christian, as she is. Where Hezbollah is treated with equanimity, if not adulation, the Christian community is typically dismissed as politically retrograde and racist toward Muslims...'