Robert Ferrigno, the author of Prayers for the Assassin reviews the presidential press conference of yesterday and notes that even though the media nipped at the heels of the president he emerged untouched. The antique media missed its chance to draw blood by neglecting to question the president about Abdul Rahman, the Afghan citizen who faces death in an Afghan court for converting to Christianity. After reading Ferrigno’s well written blog entry try reading Dana Milbank’s report on the press conference with a straight face.

(hat tip: The Corner)

As usual the president strolled off stage-right untouched. No one brought up the one question which might have struck deep at the underlying Bush Doctrine, ie, According to CNN, 278 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan as of March 22, 2006. Mr. President, how do you think those brave men and women would feel if they knew they had died to bring democracy to a country which considers it a capital offense for a Muslim to convert to Christianity? Would they feel their sacrifice was valid? Perhaps you could ask their love ones if the empty place at the kitchen table was worth it to enable Afghan President Karzai to preside over the execution of Abdul Rahman, the Afghan citizen whose conversion to Christianity from Islam is considered an act of apostacy.

No one at the press conference thought to ask the president about this. And whether we might be looking at a similar scenario if and when we bring democracy to Iraq. How to explain such a missed opportunity? The answer is obvious: the assembled media considered questions of religious freedom, of faith and conversion, irrelevant. I’m sure in the White House Press room such questions are irrelevant.