As Innocence of Muslims – the anti-Muhammad video that has been blamed for riots in the Middle East – continues to be in the news, conservatives and Christians continue to ask the wrong questions and debate the wrong issue. The issue is not whether the filmmaker is being used as a political prop to demonize Christians and appease Muslims, although that is where everyone’s focus seems to be.

Via the New York Post:

In a related “Not Optimal” outcome, the guy who made the video that President Obama so spuriously blamed for the Benghazi attack is still in jail.

True, Mark Basseley Youssef (a k a Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) is sitting in the Crossbar Hotel on an unrelated probation-violation charge.

But only an idiot would believe that the police swooped down in the darkness and collected him for any reason other than that his video had incurred the disfavor of rabid Islamists — and of Team Obama, which needed a timely post-Benghazi scapegoat.

First, we’re not idiots. Second, we don’t take issue with those who say Youssef was “collected” for political reasons. The problem is that people think that is the central argument; it’s not.

What if Youssef had a history of working with Islamists; well, he does. What if Innocence of Muslims was made, not by a devout Coptic Christian but by a provocateur? Would not both the tenor and core of the debate change? Those who currently defend Youssef would be outraged by his deception.

Yet, to this point, his defenders seem blinded by the perceived reasons for his imprisonment and disinterested in digging into his background.

The question to be asked is: Who is the filmmaker and what were his motives for making it?

Oh, one other question needs to be asked too: Where is Eiad?