My enemy's enemy is my friend?

Newsweek profiles Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of the bestselling book Infidel, who is now living in exile. Christopher Hitchens finds that Newsweek has turned the facts upside down:

Accompanying the article is a typically superficial Newsweek Q sidebar, which is almost unbelievably headed: "A Bombthrower's Life." The subject of this absurd headline is a woman [Ayaan Hirsi Ali] who has been threatened with horrific violence, by Muslims varying from moderate to extreme, ever since she was a little girl. She has more recently had to see a Dutch friend butchered in the street, been told that she is next, and now has to live with bodyguards in Washington, D.C. She has never used or advocated violence. Yet to whom does Newsweek refer as the "Bombthrower"? It's always the same with these bogus equivalences: They start by pretending loftily to find no difference between aggressor and victim, and they end up by saying that it's the victim of violence who is "really" inciting it. [emphasis added]

The behavior of Ms. Ali's critics, as described by Mr. Hitchens, fits a familiar pattern in which America's enemies, or maybe more precisely Geo. Bush's enemies, are imagined to have all manner of good qualities that all could see if only America, or Pres. Bush, or, in this case, Ms. Ali, would stop misbehaving.

In mosques in London's Islamic community, there are lectures on the proper way to beat your wife. They preach death to gays. Liberals would find all of this repulsive if they were not busy defending it against the perceived criticisms of Ms. Ali or Mr. Bush. Instead, Newsweek describes that London muslim community with lovingly PC terms like "thriving," "modern," and "diverse."

UPDATE: Bret Stephens has much more on the strange socialist-islamist alliance.