Last month, The New Criterion's Adi Sivaraman noted that CNN's Christiane Amanpour had--to say the least--mixed emotions regarding Oriana Fallaci and her frequent and passionate critiques of Islamofascism:

Aside from a few notable exceptions, Friday’s speakers all attempted to distort Fallaci’s opposition to Islamofascism. They attempted to water it down or to distort the facts by shifting the emphasis away from an opposition to radical Islam to an opposition for human rights abuses. Christiane Amanpour, in particular, was one of the worst in this vein. She struggled desperately in front of the audience to reconcile her admiration of Fallaci as a female journalist with her personal disbelief that Fallaci could do something as un-multicultural as criticize another civilization.

Finishing [CNN's upcoming three-part series called God's Warriors] didn't leave [Amanpour] with a sense of fear over the implications of stronger fundamentalist movements.

"I did come away with a sense that we—or those people who don't want to see religion in politics and culture—if we don't look into it and see what is going on, we're in danger of missing it and not be able to react to it properly," she said.

Ms. Amanpour identifies herself as one of those who "don't want to see religion in politics and culture." Which is to say, they don't want to see religion at all. I think we can diagnose her perception of "fundamentalism" as follows: "fundamentalism" means religion-based beliefs that are antithetical to her own liberal views. Islamic "fundamentalism" is a serious danger in that it encourages terrorist violence that could kill her. The likelihood of that, however, is relatively remote. Christian (and Jewish) fundamentalism doesn't pose any such hazard, but the danger that it does pose is much more immediate: most such "fundamentalists" vote for and support political candidates with whom Amanpour disagrees. So, on balance, Amanpour is as concerned about opposing the immediate "threat" of Christian fundamentalism, as she is about opposing the potentially fatal threat of Islam extremism.

This is not necessarily an irrational point of view. But it is the perspective of a political partisan, not the perspective of a journalist.

Update: Related thoughts, here.