HIS SHAMEFUL DEFENDERS
(New York Post)
by John Podhoretz
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
February 21, 2003 -- IT'S hang-your-head-in- shame day for a whole crew of naifs who simply could not face the possibility that Palestinian terrorists were being organized, funded and controlled from a tenured perch at a Florida university.
Those naifs include editors and writers at The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, Time, Newsweek and Salon.com. They preferred to believe, against all reason and all evidence, that the U.S. government was simply obsessed with tormenting a perfectly nice if overly hysterical Palestinian professor and his family.
The indictment yesterday of Sami Al-Arianfeatures two astounding allegations. The Justice Department claims in no uncertain terms that he served secretly as the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the United States and as secretary of the terror network's worldwide coordinating council.
What makes the indictment convincing? It includes intelligence intercepts as late as November that detail the extent of Al-Arian's activities on behalf of a murderous criminal conspiracy.
We don't know yet whether Al-Arian will be convicted. But his credulous supporters in the mainstream media, who spilled a lot of ink in his defense, sure have a lot of explaining to do.
The Times' Nicholas Kristof fell for Al-Arian's line of malarkey as though he were one of the dopey girls on "Joe Millionaire." Kristof's ludicrous column of March 1, 2002, describes "Professor Al-Arian" as "a rumpled academic with a salt-and-pepper beard who is harshly critical of Israel (and also of repressive Arab countries) - but who also denounces terrorism, promotes inter-faith services with Jews and Christians, and led students at his Islamic school to a memorial service after 9/11 where they all sang 'God Bless America.' "
The act of singing "God Bless America" proves someone is innocent of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism?
Eric Boehlert of Salon.com expressed outrage that the Fox News Channel had taken out after Al-Arian. He described Al-Arian as an "innocent professor" and added that "media giants, eagerly tapping into the country's mood of vengeance and fear, latched onto the Al-Arian story, fudging the facts and ignoring the most rudimentary tenets of journalism in their haste to better tell a sinister story about lurking Middle Eastern dangers here at home."
[SNIP!]
What's really going on here?
Simple. A vast segment of liberal opinion is desperate to see the war on terrorism as a new explosion of McCarthyism. And they want to sign up to fight the evil government in its evil effort to torment poor, innocent Muslims.
They do resemble certain people who were active during the 70-year life of the Soviet Union - those who closed their eyes to the threat emanating from World Communism. Lenin called such people, who were unknowingly serving his interests, "useful idiots."
Idiots, yes. Useful? Not any more.
--------------------
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/54923.htm
(New York Post)
by John Podhoretz
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
February 21, 2003 -- IT'S hang-your-head-in- shame day for a whole crew of naifs who simply could not face the possibility that Palestinian terrorists were being organized, funded and controlled from a tenured perch at a Florida university.
Those naifs include editors and writers at The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, Time, Newsweek and Salon.com. They preferred to believe, against all reason and all evidence, that the U.S. government was simply obsessed with tormenting a perfectly nice if overly hysterical Palestinian professor and his family.
The indictment yesterday of Sami Al-Arianfeatures two astounding allegations. The Justice Department claims in no uncertain terms that he served secretly as the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the United States and as secretary of the terror network's worldwide coordinating council.
What makes the indictment convincing? It includes intelligence intercepts as late as November that detail the extent of Al-Arian's activities on behalf of a murderous criminal conspiracy.
We don't know yet whether Al-Arian will be convicted. But his credulous supporters in the mainstream media, who spilled a lot of ink in his defense, sure have a lot of explaining to do.
The Times' Nicholas Kristof fell for Al-Arian's line of malarkey as though he were one of the dopey girls on "Joe Millionaire." Kristof's ludicrous column of March 1, 2002, describes "Professor Al-Arian" as "a rumpled academic with a salt-and-pepper beard who is harshly critical of Israel (and also of repressive Arab countries) - but who also denounces terrorism, promotes inter-faith services with Jews and Christians, and led students at his Islamic school to a memorial service after 9/11 where they all sang 'God Bless America.' "
The act of singing "God Bless America" proves someone is innocent of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism?
Eric Boehlert of Salon.com expressed outrage that the Fox News Channel had taken out after Al-Arian. He described Al-Arian as an "innocent professor" and added that "media giants, eagerly tapping into the country's mood of vengeance and fear, latched onto the Al-Arian story, fudging the facts and ignoring the most rudimentary tenets of journalism in their haste to better tell a sinister story about lurking Middle Eastern dangers here at home."
[SNIP!]
What's really going on here?
Simple. A vast segment of liberal opinion is desperate to see the war on terrorism as a new explosion of McCarthyism. And they want to sign up to fight the evil government in its evil effort to torment poor, innocent Muslims.
They do resemble certain people who were active during the 70-year life of the Soviet Union - those who closed their eyes to the threat emanating from World Communism. Lenin called such people, who were unknowingly serving his interests, "useful idiots."
Idiots, yes. Useful? Not any more.
--------------------
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/54923.htm
