Salon may be a far-left publication, but the commentary they were willing to publish was considered too much even for them, in the form of a piece from Brian Karem, whose byline describes him as the former senior White House correspondent for Playboy. While the headline now reads "Far-right MAGA theocrats: Most dangerous threat to America," the original dared to compare Hamas to congressional Republicans.
Archived versions, as well as screenshots and even the piece's own URL, indicate that the original headline read "MAGA and Christian nationalism: Bigger threat to America than Hamas could ever be." Both versions of the article show a featured image of the the speaker surrounded by many fellow Republicans.
The October 7 terrorist attack that Hamas unleashed against Israel resulted in 1,400 Israelis killed, most of them civilians. It was the bloodiest day in Israel's history, with the most Jews killed since the Holocaust. Hamas targeted men, women, children, and the elderly. Not even babies and Holocaust victims were spared gruesome deaths, the details which still continue to come out. Hamas also targeted people for kidnapping, rape, and torture. Americans have been included in the death toll and those held hostage.
Despite the use of the terrorist organization in the headline, Hamas is only mentioned a handful of times. Rather, it's to promote his own role at White House press briefings, which is to shout out questions despite not being called on:
So, although I wasn’t called on, as Kirby left the stage I interrupted to ask the only question I thought mattered: “John, wait a minute. Before you leave: If Hamas terrorists attack the U.S., would the U.S. put boots on the ground in the Middle East?”
Kirby stopped his retreat from the stage, and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre let him answer. Kirby was succinct: “I won't speculate about that, Brian. We’ll obviously do what we have to do to protect our troops and our people.”
Here's where some sort of connection does come in:
On a day the Republicans were mired in their own gamesmanship, an Israeli air strike targeting a Hamas commander in the densely-populated Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza left catastrophic damage and killed hundreds of people, according to medics and eyewitnesses.
Children were seen carrying other children away from the blast zone. “It felt like the end of the world,” one surviving witness said.
That is our world today. It took an asteroid the size of a modern city to wipe out the dinosaurs. People, being smarter than dinosaurs, have figured out how to destroy everything all by ourselves. Climate change is slowly creeping up on us and we are killing each other at an increasing rate. It took a Category 5 hurricane to kill 40-odd people in Acapulco last week. We killed that many in two mass shootings in the U.S. in about the same amount of time — and spared the property. Pogo was right: We have met the enemy and he is us.
The commentary itself lacks significant focus, though there is indeed typical far-left fodder against Republicans. Johnson isn't mentioned until 12 paragraphs in, though. Johnson is the named subject, but it's Christians in general who Karem goes after. It's a lot we've heard before, only with a more extreme headline:
While the world burns, Johnson and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party — which seems to have swallowed the evangelical movement while also embracing it (a T-1000 morphing into Sarah Connor is just about the right image) — is embracing the darkest verses of the Bible, apparently pushing for apocalypse with an enthusiasm only rivaled by Saul’s slaughter of Christians before he changed his name to Paul.
...
The House of Representatives, now run by Johnson, offers a discount version of the apocalyptic orgasm the holy rollers have dreamed of for years. They’ve renewed the Inquisition and seem determined to convert the U.S. into a theocracy run by people who will thump you with the Bible, but haven’t read much of it.
Lord, how they love to preach fire and brimstone. But the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes? Forget it. Matthew 25:40: “Whatever you did it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”? Not a chance. They’ve embraced only the Old Testament angry God and the apocalyptic parts of Revelation brought on by ergot poisoning.
They want no separation of church and state. They want an isolationist country surrounded by walls and dedicated to the proposition that the First Amendment guarantees them the right to worship any way they want — while forcing the rest of us to worship the way they choose.
The tone-deaf commentary comes in other ways, too, such as how "[b]ipartisanship, once seen as a laudable goal on many issues, is now sneered at by most remaining members of the Republican Party. Working with Democrats, for them, is like choosing death over a slice of cake... Most Republicans are so dismayed at the prospect of working with Democrats that they want to scuttle efforts to fund the war in Ukraine..."
"The headline to this article has been changed since it was first published," the update at the bottom of the piece reads, though it doesn't indicate why. The timestamp indicates the update was made Friday afternoon, with the original headline from Thursday morning being allowed to remain for over 24 hours.
The original post that Salon shared to X has the initial headline and 10,000 replies. It was also trending over the platform on Thursday, with many expressing shock and outrage, as our friends at Twitchy have highlighted, including when it comes to updates.
Curiously, this headline from Karem is not the only one that got updated. In the "Read more" section pointing to Karem's writings "on the world in chaos," one such article from October 12 is "Hamas and the GOP are both terrorist groups — it's just a matter of degree." The link applies goes to a page that no longer exists, though, and the article does not even appear on archived materials.
MAGA and Christian nationalism: Bigger threat to America than Hamas could ever be https://t.co/1m0SiYWzcH
— Salon (@Salon) November 2, 2023
Over 24 hours later, Salon finally changed their headline on the deeply offensive commentary piece from Brian Karem claiming MAGA’s worse than Hamas. Curiously, the update doesn’t mention why. They’re also cracking down on other pieces from Karem it looks like, from weeks ago. pic.twitter.com/oxWHyG6dOf
— Rebecca Downs (@RebeccaRoseGold) November 3, 2023