There’s a stomach-turning segment of the American population that sees surviving Boston bomber suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a romantic maverick. The New York Times mused about the accused jihadist’s “Holden Caulfield-like adolescent alienation.” Pop singer Amanda Palmer wrote a fan girl “Poem for Dzhokhar.” An adoring “Free Jahar” movement thrives on social media.

Fringe, you say? Think again. The fetish for cop-killing fugitives and cop-hating radicals is a mainstay of Hollywood, academia, the liberal media and Democratic Party circles. It has persisted for decades. It reared its head on May Day with rock-hurling anarchists in Seattle and D.C. shouting “F**k the pigs” and kicking cops. And consider the exaltation of the woman just named to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, Joanne Chesimard.

On Thursday, the feds announced that they are doubling their reward for the capture of Chesimard (a.k.a. “Assata Shakur”). The former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army agitator has been a fugitive from justice for nearly 40 years and openly thumbs her nose at her victim’s family while living in Cuba as a political asylee. Congressional Black Caucus members have stubbornly protested extradition efforts, invoking the poisonous race card and deifying Chesimard as a “political prisoner.” Columbia University professor Marc Lamont Hill glorifies her as a “freedom fighter.”

Just last week, rapper Common added an Assata Shakur tribute verse to Jay Z’s recent “Open Letter” rap defending his wedding anniversary trip to Chesimard’s sanctuary of Cuba. “The same way they say she was a shooter, Assata Shakur, they tried to execute her. We should free her like we should (convicted cop-killer) Mumia (Abu Jamal),” Common proclaims.

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“The same way they say she was a shooter, Assata Shakur, they tried to execute her. We should free her like we should Mumia.”

Sometimes I wonder if the believe this stuff, or if they just can't think of any other word(s) that rhyme.