You’da thought Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was Barack Obama, the way Rockford’s local news media fawned over him on Sunday.  Yes, Captain Hijab made a super-secret stop in Chronicles‘ hometown early Sunday morning, on his way to the G20 Summit in Cabo.  Said Rockford Airport Director Mike Dunn, “The entire delegation were just very very friendly and warm people.”

This is what we’ve been reduced to, here in the land of dead factories and record unemployment: We rejoice that the re-Islamicizer of Turkey deigns to step foot in our airport.  The granddaddy of the Arab Spring, who serves as a model for incremental Islamic revolution, is way-cool, just because he was nice to us while his jet was refueled.  What’s more, “‘They’ve asked us to extend an invitation to our mayor to perhaps visit Turkey with a trade delgation from here,’ says Dunn.”

I don’t reckon the good folks of Turkey are interested in buying Cheap Trick CDs, sock monkeys, public-school discrimination memorabilia, or Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, so I doubt the deal will get done.  Truth is, if we really did make what we used to make, which made Rockford the manufacturing capitol of the Midwest, I doubt we’d be so enamored of flying Islamicists.