LET'S END THE FASCINATION WITH THE TRANSGRESSIVES.

The privileged young man who rejected a life of relative ease to become the masked man of propaganda for the Sillies gets a romanticized profile in the Washington Post.  There's reference to an "extremely gentle, kind … beautiful young man" pushed by the excesses of the authorities into the thug life.

In the case of Jihadi John — and in the case of thousands of other young men flocking to join the Islamic State — the West should not ask what is wrong with these misguided youth. The West should ask what is wrong with the West.

“This case should trigger thinking about British domestic and foreign policy,” [research director of a self-described advocacy organization Asim] Qureshi said. “… Why are the long-standing grievances over Western interventions in the Muslim world been ignored?”

The "victimized sweet boy" schtick is too much even for Chris Matthews. (I've been having trouble getting the video to play. As an economy measure, MSNBC might have taken the Snickers bars away from tech support.)

Yes, I agree, as a general principle, sugar-coating the personality or the upbringing of known lowlives is a bad idea. Perhaps the producers at MSNBC will keep it in mind the next time a neighborhood delinquent commits suicide by cop.  Oh, wait, stirring up trouble and covering it might build ratings.