I’ve been meaning to do a follow up on the below post for some time but haven’t had the chance.  For something more current (and more articulate) check out Bob Smietana’s new article at The Tennessean.  Here’s a snip from ‘Anti-Muslim crusaders make millions spreading fear‘:

JOHN PARTIPILO / FILE / THE TENNESSEAN

That’s how many dollars Emerson’s for-profit company — Washington-based SAE Productions — collected in 2008 for researching alleged ties between American Muslims and overseas terrorism. The payment came from the Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation, a nonprofit charity Emerson also founded, which solicits money by telling donors they’re in imminent danger from Muslims.

Emerson is a leading member of a multimillion-dollar industry of self-proclaimed experts who spread hate toward Muslims in books and movies, on websites and through speaking appearances.

Leaders of the so-called “anti-jihad” movement portray themselves as patriots, defending America against radical Islam. And they’ve found an eager audience in ultra-conservative Christians and mosque opponents in Middle Tennessee. One national consultant testified in an ongoing lawsuit aimed at stopping a new Murfreesboro mosque…

That ‘national consultant’ is the subject of the below.

Crossposted from Care2.com ~ Originally published 6 October 2010

AARON THOMPSON / FILE / GANNETT TENNESSEE

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration Frank Gaffney appeared in a Tennessee courtroom Monday, Sept. 27, to offer his “expert” testimony on behalf of four plaintiffs seeking an injunction to prevent the construction of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, commonly referred to as the Murfreesboro mosque.

From the Murfreesboro Post:

“I’m here to warn this community of seditious acts of Sharia Law,” Gaffney said.  “And that threat has trickled down to local governments.”

Gaffney’s testimony carried little weight with the Judge, the witness having clarified the true nature of his expertise to the court:

“I don’t hold myself out as an expert on Sharia Law,”  Gaffney told the court on the witness stand.  “But I have talked a lot about that as a threat.”

This is exactly what Gaffney is an expert at — scaring the crap out of people regarding a topic, on which, he is decidedly NOT an expert.

Two days after his court testimony, Gaffney went on CNN to discuss the Murfreesboro case with Anderson Cooper and Akbar Ahmed, former Pakistani diplomat, presently the chair of Islamic studies at American University (h/t TPMMuckraker).  In the below clip, Cooper starts with Gaffney, asking the  president of the Center for Security Policy to elaborate on the “red flags” signaling the onset of Sharia infiltration.

Gaffney’s opening was curious.  “Well, several were introduced into evidence during the court proceedings,” Gaffney told Cooper.  While such items may have been introduced into evidence, it doesn’t mean they’ll have any bearing on the Court’s conclusions.  And, as the Murfreesboro Post reported, much of Gaffney’s testimony was objected to by the County attorneys and their objections were subsequently sustained by the Judge.

What follows from Gaffney is the standard neoconservative misrepresentation of Sharia and overstatement of the threat, which, in Gaffney’s warped view, poses an existential threat to America by way of “stealth jihad.”

Watch the clip or read the CNN transcript for the details of Gaffney’s foolish paranoia.  Also be sure to read Rachel Slajda’s Sept. 23 TPMMuckraker piece recounting the origins of the neoconservative war on Sharia.  Here, however, consider Ahmed’s response to Gaffney on CNN as he puts the likelihood of Sharia replacing the U.S. Constitution in its proper perspective:

If every Muslim in the United States of America, which is about 2 percent of the population, wanted Sharia — which is not the case at all — even if they wanted it, could they impose it over a population of 98 percent who are not Muslim in a democracy?

In my country where I come from, Pakistan, 98 percent of the population is Muslim. There is no Sharia law. I’ve been a commissioner in charge of large parts of the country. Our laws are criminal and civil procedure codes derived from British colonial law which go to Westminster, which in turn has influenced the U.S. Constitution.

So the notion of Sharia being implemented in America with about 2 percent of the population, to me, is mathematically absurd.

(CNN clip via Media Matters Action)

The court battle over the Murfreesboro mosque is in recess until Oct. 20, but its outcome is a foregone conclusion.  The legal arguments presented by opponents of the project — that county officials didn’t provide sufficient public notice during the approval process — are baseless.  The whole sorry episode, much like the inflated controversy over the Park 51 community center in lower Manhattan, is sideshow propaganda from one group of clash-of-civilization types directed at another.  For a sideshow, however, as Glenn Greenwald, Greg Sargent, and Jonathan Chait argued last month, its pursuit could have significant, possibly dire, consequences for America.

Most concerning at present, though, is that Gaffney’s convoluted conspiracy spew, once relegated to the neocon fringe, is now treated as plausible.

Salon’s Joe Conason recalls Gaffney’s 2003 alarmism aimed at prominent conservative Grover Norquist and the Bush administration for “… engagement with Muslim groups that [Gaffney] and others [anti-Park51 crusader Pamela Geller among them] had identified as jihadist or radical.”  Few conservatives paid them any mind back in the day.  ”All that has changed since the inauguraton of a president whose middle name is Hussein and whose father was Muslim,” Conason writes, “because he provides a central focus for a politicized campaign against Islam…”

Now, potential 2012 GOP candidates for president seem content to wear their hatred of Islam on their sleeves.  Whether it’s Sarah Palin’s petty invocations of the president’s middle name, or Newt Gingrich’s steadfast adherence to the neocons’ fear mongering message, Islamophobia stands to be a prominent feature on the Republican policy platform for the foreseeable future.

Related on Care2:

• Tenn. Mosque Opponents: “Islam Is Not A Real Religion”
• Mosque That Was Hit By Arson Now Attacked Via Bureaucracy

Related Elsewhere:

• TIMELINE: Nine months of the right’s anti-Muslim bigotry | Media Matters for America
• Confronting Islamophobic Conspiracy Theories | The Plum Line

via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog! Go! Produced by Cesca for CollegeHumor.com.

Frank Rich made an interesting observation about Sarah Palin’s crib notes incident at the Tea Party Convention ~

You had to wonder if Palin, who is nothing if not cunning, had sprung a trap. She knows all too well that the more the so-called elites lampoon her, the more she cements her cred with the third of the country that is her base. Her hand hieroglyphics may not have been speaking aids but bait.

If so, mission accomplished. Her sleight of hand gave the anti-Palin chorus another prod to deride her as an empty-headed, subliterate clown, and her fans another cue to rally…

Read More–> Frank Rich, “Palin’s Cunning Sleight of Hand.” NYTimes.com, 13 Feb. 2010

While my take on this matter is nowhere near as well written as Rich’s , I suggested similarly on Feb. 11… and took bunch of crap for it.  (Just sayin’)

via The GOP has a Palin Problem, cross-posted from Care2.com ~ Originally published, 10 January 2010

The National Journal conducted a poll of 109 Republican Party leaders, asking them to “rank 5 candidates in the order of likeliness to capture the GOP nod.”  That former MA Governor Mitt Romney topped the lists of those polled with 81 points, 62 per-cent of which were first place votes, is unsurprising.  Were it not for half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s poor showing (25 points) it probably wouldn’t be worth talking about.

Not one of the party leaders or pundits polled selected Palin to top their list.  Taking into account the ideological nature of her supporters — distrustful of government, adherents to the myth of a liberal media, and, most importantly, a profound disdain for the GOP elite — this was the best outcome Palin could have hoped for.

Talented FiveThirtyEight.com political prognosticator, Nate Silver, likes Palin’s chances to win 2012 Republican presidential nomination.  Silver posted “10 reasons that Palin Could Win,” last Nov. 18.  In his Jan. 7 reaction to the Insider’s Poll, Silver reiterated his number eight reason from last year:

…If the Establishment, owing to electability concerns or whatever else, tries to put hurdles in her way by re-structuring the primary or delegate allocation process, it may only play into the victimization complex of Palin and her supporters.

Silver’s commentary is apt, and though the poll doesn’t represent any direct effort to “neuter” Palin’s potential candidacy, that doesn’t mean they wont (see video, below).  “Although the Establishment’s concerns about Palin’s viability as a general election candidate are well grounded,” Silver notes, “mostly they’re just terrified of her because she doesn’t need them. “

It might be wiser for establishment Republicans to remain hands-off, and wait for Palin to self destruct.  Her supporters have proven themselves willing to keep their blinders on, content to cling to the dazzling façade rolled out at the 2008 Republican National Convention.  However, Palin’s high visibility — albeit, NEVER in a critical forum — increases the probability of a politically fatal mistake.

Indeed, she may have already made it.  I’m not referring to Palin’s recent doubling down on her “death panel” analysis of health care reform efforts in Washington – a turn of phrase awarded “Lie of the Year” for 2009 byPolitifact.com, Pulitzer winner in that same year.  Palin’s deceit in this matter will go unnoticed by her supporters.

However, Palin’s snubbing of the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has got much attention.  Much more interesting is her commitment to speak at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Feb. 4-6.

Muriel Kane posted an excellent summary about how different factions are reacting to Palin’s curious positioning at RawStory.com, Jan. 8.

Missed opportunity, simple greed, or shrewd calculation? Only time will tell the real meaning of Sarah Palin’s Tea Party gambit.

Another aspect that has, thus far, received little attention from the media pertains to whom Palin will share the stage with at the Tea Party Convention.  Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, Eric Boehlert, posed the question in a Jan. 9 post:  “Will the press question the ‘Palin – Farah’ ticket?”

The Beltway press still refuses to raise questions about Palin’s decision to attend the first annual Tea Party convention in Nashville next month and share the stage with a fringe radical like Joseph Farah, who is an avowed gay and Muslim-hating extremist, and whose wingnut publication, [World Net Daily], remains obsessed with the loony, and thoroughly debunked, conspiracy claim that Obama was not born in America.

Of course, Kane was correct – only time will tell how this will play out.  There is a long way to go, but the potential for Palin to become the 2012 GOP nominee still exists.  So, too, does another outcome which I suggested the day Palin announced her resignation as Governor of Alaska:

If Palin does still have national aspirations, her only hope of success (in her mind, mind you) would be to position herself at the head of some third-party, the radical right-wing of the GOP finally throwing off its remaining moderate faction.

See Also:

• David Weigel, “Is Palin Getting $100,000 to Speak at the Tea Party National Convention.“ WashintonIndependent.com, 7 January 2010.

• Here’s a teaser for the Jan. 10 ‘60 Minutes‘ segment on Sarah Palin:

Palin Inaccurate says McCain Strategist

Related on Care2:

• Palin Quits – Could GOP split be in the offing?

• The Death Panel Lie – Conservative Dishonesty in the Health Care Reform Debate

Jed Lewison posted this at Daily Kos TV, Jan. 13.  The video displays Sarah Palin associating the 9/11 attacks with Iraq twice during the 2008 presidential campaign.

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