I suppose the phrase “the pot calling the kettle black” is somehow racist now, but since I’m called one incessantly just for being a Conservative anyway, I’ll say it regardless. Meghan McCain epitomizes that phrase and she proves it yet again with her latest inane rambling of her alleged thoughts on Rand Paul.

I admit that when she tweeted that a new article at The Daily Beast, on Rand Paul no less, was forthcoming, I giggled with schadenfreude-y anticipation.  I knew it would be snicker-worthy and I wasn’t disappointed. The only problem is that when I read her reputed writing, I hear things like “ZOMG! Why all the H8rs!!111 Oh, look! Cute shoes!” But, once I tell that voice to get off my lawn (as I’d like to do to Meghan herself), I’m able to somehow muddle through, as a service to y’all. See? The things I do, like read Meghan McCain, so you don’t have to! You’re welcome.

Meghan McCain, of course, jumped right on the bandwagon of her Progressive posse to further the “Tea Partiers are racist” meme. She first set it up by implying that somehow Rand Paul is the face of the Tea Party movement, proving once again that she, like her Progressive buddies, knows nothing about the Tea Parties, nor do they even understand them. It has no face. It has no leader. Nor does it want one. Then, she goes in for the Racist ™ topper:

Paul’s nomination could have been a moment of triumph for the Tea Party movement, as well as for Republicans, but instead it was an embarrassment. And I felt the disappointment firsthand, given that I agree with and support numerous things the Tea Party represents. Like many Americans, I’m angered by the intense spending going on under the Obama administration. But when the movement was given the opportunity to present specific solutions and answer real questions, its leaders nominated someone who—yet again—revealed weird, racist undertones, no matter how he wants to spin it.

An embarrassment for Republicans? Oh my, my tummy hurts! That right there is the pot calling  the kettle black. Also note, she doesn’t list anything that the Tea Party represents. Because she’s clueless, as always. Furthermore, in addition to the unfounded claim that somehow Paul’s answer, which only had to do with specific arguments of potential over-reach of the federal government, had “weird, racist undertones”, she also adds in “yet again”. Yet again? Nice job promulgating the idea that the Tea Parties are racist, Meggie Mac. That should get her invited to some super cool cocktail parties, which are the only kind of parties she seems to know or care about.

As always, Meghan McCain is concerned only with Meghan McCain. And being thought of as “cool” and “hip” and “edgy” so that the right people, in her mind, will like her. She has yet to learn that they only pretend to like her as long as they can use her to bash Republicans. She obviously doesn’t realize yet that is the only reason she is paid – such a depressing thought – for her alleged writing.

She also has yet to learn that the “I’m so brave, I speak my own mind” line doesn’t work when one always takes the easy route and never, ever says anything actually brave. You see, Meghan, you can’t claim to be an individual nor a rebel. You have proven yourself to be a sheep — in cute shoes, yes, but a sheep nonetheless.

She constantly calls for a big tent, calls people ‘haters’ (or H8rs for those of limited intelligence on the Left) and claims she is being silenced. She takes photographs for an ad campaign with duct tape over her mouth, as if anyone is stopping her from speaking. Sadly, oh-so-sadly, they are not. Yet, in the next breath, she seeks to silence the thoughts and opinions of anyone with whom she disagrees. They are meany pants, you see. And not “cool” and stuff. They’ve probably never been on The View, for goodness sake!

The rest of the article is good for a few more snickers, but the conclusion of her thoughtful insight (I can’t keep a straight face whilst typing that) really stands out:

Paul’s role within the Republican Party (if any) has yet to be determined. But one thing I am sure of is that, until we start nominating candidates who have more realistic views of the complex world we live in and stop seeing things strictly in black and white (no pun intended), we are going to continue losing elections and becoming punch lines for late-night talk-show hosts.

Meghan, honey, your buddies are the ones who only see things in black and white. Literally. As for the punch line remark, I suggest you look in the mirror. There, you will see what happens when one refuses to hang their head down in shame and slowly walk away when their 15 minutes of fame are up.

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Follow Lori  on Twitter and read more of her work at Snark and Boobs, iOwntheWorld , Right Wing News and Red State.

Our Joseph Klein already did a terrific job of parsing Time Magazine’s Joe Klein’s deranged outburst on the weekend Chris Matthews Show that Sarah Palin and Glenn beck were guilty of “sedition.”

(It’s gotta be tough to keep up with making sure that people know the difference between Joe and Joseph.  I remember the first time I saw an article by Joseph on Frontpage I briefly thought, “Really, Joe Klein wrote THAT?”  Then, like when I get an email purporting that George Carlin or Robin Williams said something patriotic, I immediately thought better of it.  At least if there is something crazy floating around under the name David Forsmark, people are sure where to come about it!)

So, it’s understandable that Joseph focused on Joe and missed that the co-author of the season’s big political book, Game Change, John Heilemann also chimed in:

JOHN HEILEMANN: “And Joe’s right and I’ll name another person, I’ll name Rush Limbaugh who uses this phrase constantly and talks about the Obama Administration as a regime.  That phrase which has connotations of tyranny.

This is beyond funny, since Rush has started with the “regime” gag to specifically bug Chris Matthews’s hypocrisy in objecting to the term on this basis—and Heilemann has himself in the past used the term to apply to BOTH the Bush and Obama Administrations!

This weekend’s Chris Matthews Show featured a fevered discussion about the Tea Party movement in which Norah O’Donnell, who approached a black guy at a Tea Party and asked if he was uncomfortable ranted about the huge increase in “hate groups and militias” and Kathleen Parker, the supposed “conservative” who just got a Pulitzer Prize for Palin Derangement Syndrome nodded sagely and said Republicans were going to suffer when “something happens.”

Heilemann continued his rant:

JOHN HEILEMANN: And what’s so interesting about it to me, to get to Norah’s point – what is the focus, what is the cause of this? You think back to 1994, there was Ruby Ridge. There was Waco. There were triggering incidents. There’s been nothing like that. The only thing that’s changed in the last 15 months is the election of Barack Obama. And as far as I can see, in terms of the policies that Obama has implemented, there’s nothing.”

Nope, just the takeover of GM and Chrysler, the bailout of Goldman Sachs, the adding of $2 Trillion of national debt in about 5 minutes, the attempted takeover of the health care system which settled for un-Constitutional methods to take the first step in that direction, the proposal of an energy tax/regulation that will control every aspect of the economy, and talk of amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens in time to vote for Obama.

What else could motivate these people besides race?

Even funnier was the insistence by Matthews, Heilemann and Joe Klein that 60s antiwar protesters were “fun” and protested with a “smile” unlike the angry Tea Party seditious mobs.

Right, actively trying to make your country lose a war is so much more legitimate than objecting to the list above!

The silver lining is that compared to the pathetic viewership of the weekend Chris Matthews Show, his MSNBC program is a ratings juggernaut.

Try it yourself: go to Bing and type in "Jews are." One suggested completion of the phrase will show up:

Now type in "Christians are," and you'll get two suggestions:

But if you type in "Muslims are," you get no hint that they are evil, pumpkin-like, or stupid. You get nothing at all:

So once again possible negative suggestions are filtered out for the world's most thin-skinned and lethal religious believers -- the ones waging a global campaign against free speech about the aspects of their religion that incite and justify violence and supremacism. What a coincidence!

For more on Bing, see here.

(Thanks to Richard for the heads-up.)

Has Bing come down with the same “bug” that infected Google for so long — the one that censored negative searches about Islam?

Try it yourself: go to Bing and type in “Jews are.” One suggested completion of the phrase will show up:

Now type in “Christians are,” and you’ll get two suggestions:

But if you type in “Muslims are,” you get no hint that they are evil, pumpkin-like, or stupid. You get nothing at all:

So once again possible negative suggestions are filtered out for the world’s most thin-skinned and lethal religious believers — the ones waging a global campaign against free speech about the aspects of their religion that incite and justify violence and supremacism. What a coincidence!

(Thanks to Richard for the heads-up.)

Roman Polanski’s wife wants you to know the truth about her husband.  You’ll find that “truth” printed in thousands of articles, a handful with unfortunate headlines like these:

Roman Polanski’s Wife Talks About Sex Case

Wife Understands Women’s Shock at Polanski Sex Case but Says Today Is Not Permissive 1970s

The phrase “sex case” has been used in the American media to describe everything from child rape to Senator John Ensign’s extramarital affair.  In the headlines cited above, it’s an attempt to obfuscate and even minimize the barbarous nature of Polanski’s crime.

But let’s not forget: Roman Polanski raped a child. He continued to rape her after she begged him to stop.  Would it really be so gauche, so unsophisticated to call Polanski’s crime a sexual assault, unlawful sex, or heaven forfend, rape?  Polanski’s wife certainly thinks so.

“My personal truth is that Roman is a marvelous husband and man,” said actress Emmanuelle Seigner, 43. “He is an impeccable man and I have nothing to reproach him for.”

“Personal truth.” I think I need a rape apologist to English translation. Is that the truth, or the truth-truth?

The director’s wife said the 1970s were a “crazy time.”

Ah, yes, the 1970s, when California was a lawless free-for-all.  That “crazy time” when drugging 13-year-old girls into dazed compliance was plain vanilla foreplay. It wasn’t rape, it was just run-of-the-mill seventies sex.

“The relationship to drugs wasn’t the same, the relationship to sexual liberty and permissiveness neither,” she said. “Today, public opinion has considerably evolved on the subjects.”

Really? Did the 1970s climate of sexual liberty and permissiveness grant Hollywood directors an all-you-can-rape card that magically turned every “no” into an enthusiastic “yes”?

Of course not. If any of Emmanuelle Seigner’s delusions about her husband were true, we wouldn’t be discussing the Roman Polanski rape case today.  Charges of rape by use of drugs, sodomy, and child molestation would not have been filed in the mythical 1977 Seigner imagines.  And Roman Polanski could have spent the last three decades in America, flitting from teenager to teenager without fear of repercussions.

Instead, Polanski hopped a flight to Europe and proceeded to live a charmed life, fawned over by rape apologists in Hollywood, the media, and his family, and insulated from those of us who won’t pretend that a child rapist is beyond reproach.

—–

Follow Jenn Q. Public on Twitter and read more of her work at JennQPublic.com.

Related posts:

1. Polanski Petition Doesn't Address Rape Charges
2. PJTV's Poliwood Confronts the Hollywood Left's "Free Polanski" Movement
3. Is Hollywood Really Backing Polanski?

An update on -- and apparent resolution to -- this story. "Exclusive: Islam Is ... Finally Being Fixed on Google," by Jeremy A. Kaplan for FOXNews.com, January 25 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A glitch in the "don't be evil" company's search engine appeared to censor searches for information about Islam. And after nearly three weeks, the company is finally fixing the problem.

Type "Christianity is" into Google and you'll get a list of common searches. But the engine appears to suppress results for "Islam is."

After nearly three weeks, Google is finally repairing a glitch that hid search suggestions for the phrase "Islam is," which had led some to conclude that Google -- whose mantra is "don't be evil" -- had been censoring its search results.

A Google spokesman tells FoxNews.com that "the bug fix is in the process of rolling out, and suggestions will be visible within the next few days." Twitter comments from readers across the country confirm Google's statement; reports from Florida, Ohio, New Jersey, Georgia and more concur that the fix is rolling out across the country.

When FoxNews.com had asked Google for an explanation on Jan. 8, a company spokesman explained that the weird absence of results was just a software problem: "This is in fact a bug and we're working to fix it as quickly as we can." But the company would not respond to requests for clarification, nor would it offer a timeline for repairing the problem.

And until this morning, nearly three weeks had elapsed without a patch for the glitch, which clearly turned out to be more complex than initially assumed. When asked this morning for an estimated repair date for the bug, a Google spokesman would say only that the company was working on a fix, adding that "this is not an editorial thing." [...]

An intriguing corollary: Google does offer search suggestions for future tense queries as well. Search for "Christianity will" and Google suggests "Christianity will end, it will disappear," and "Christianity will end." Input the same query about Islam and Google notes that "Islam will dominate the world" and "Islam will destroy Europe."

GAZA CITY (AFP) - A member of the armed wing of the Islamist movement Hamas was killed while handling explosives in the Gaza Strip overnight, a Palestinian medic said on Friday.

Imad al-Selkawy, 25, suffered fatal injuries in the accidental blast, which occurred at Deir el-Balah in the centre of the Palestinian territory, the medic said.

Hamas's armed wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades confirmed the death in a statement, saying its activist had been killed during a "mission of jihad," a phrase it uses to describe such incidents.

"In late 1492 King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castille succeeded in driving the Muslims from Spain" - posted at a website

This statement, so often made, seems at first glance both true, and innocuous. I mean, wasn't that what happened? Wasn't 1492 the year that those Christians expelled from Spain the Jews and the Moors? I can hear it even now being used at some Interfaith-Healing Meeting, possibly by an unctuous Muslim cleric oozing sincerity and goodwill and attempting to win points from some terminally naïve rabbi, as he insists that "the fates of the Jews and Muslims are linked" and "we Muslims like you Jews have been victims" and "why should we, the Muslims, pay for the crimes of others - the Christians of Europe?" and, as the piece de resistance, "we Muslims are the new Jews." And among the statements to be made in passing will be a reference as to how, as a symbol of that shared pain, both "the Jews and the Moors were expelled from Spain in 1492."

But that isn't true. That assertion - that "the Jews and Moors were expelled from Spain in 1492" -- constitutes a small but significant example of the many half-truths, the slightly-off-truths, the complete untruths, that by themselves may not mean too much, but when they are added up, manage to provide a pseudo-narrative that Muslim apologists have proven adept at exploiting, particularly as they appeal to the West's misplaced sense of guilt. If the Moors can be likened to the Jews, expelled in the same year, and impliedly, out of the same baseless bigotry that the West exhibits, then the Muslims can claim or at least try to claim victimhood equivalent to that of the Jews. That in their own lands, and in their own lives, Muslims treat Jews terribly, and regard them with an inculcated hatred that comes not from European traditions of antisemitism but, quite independently, from sources in Islam, does not embarrass them in the slightest (although that Islamic-inspired antisemitism is no doubt, here and there, given the flavoring nowadays of the antisemitism that was part of Western Christendom, sometimes virulent, sometimes dormant, sometimes acted upon, sometimes not). They are happy to exploit that victimhood and to appropriate it as their own, or as something shared by them, in order to score points against the quite properly alarmed Infidels all over the West.

By "misplaced sense of guilt" I mean that many, though not all, of the current inhabitants of the West often unthinkingly assent to all kinds of charges made against them. And they do this gladly, even with relish, without doing the work to find out if indeed the charges are true or only partly true, or possibly false. Many enjoy, it seems, owning up to the sins of "colonialism," but these same people seldom ask nowadays for a precise definition of this term. They do not ask ourselves if there were differences in the way colonialism worked itself out, if there were gains as well as losses even to those held to be victims of colonialism. And they do not inquire too deeply into what position, what "original position," to appropriate, shamelessly, and apply differently, a Rawlsian term, many of these colonized peoples would be in had the Europeans never arrived. Would they everywhere have been better off? Or only in some places? Or perhaps colonialism brought benefits that should be recognized, as the writer N. S. Chaudhuri argued should be done by Indians in regard to the British.

Nor do we ask ourselves, or ask others to start asking themselves, about the other forms of domination and conquest that have transformed lands and peoples far more devastatingly and cruelly and completely than Western "colonialism." We just don't know enough, don't know enough even to raise the matter. Who was it who first enslaved vast numbers of black Africans? Which slave trade was it that started long before, and ended long after, and claimed as many or more victims than, the slave trade in Africa conducted by Europeans? Who enslaved Europeans, too, raiding the coasts of Europe for many centuries? Who established slavery as a way of life and way of governing? Who was it who conquered territories and managed to convince or force many peoples to abandon their own faiths, their own ways, to forget their own histories, or to ignore them, to forget their local languages, to succumb to cultural and linguistic imperialism?

When we let a little untruth go by, the kind of untruth that plays into an Arab or Muslim or Muslim Arab narrative of victimization, we do ourselves harm, for we aid the forces of Jihad.

Let's start, one more time, back in 1492.

Four important things happened in Spain that year.

Let's go over them again.

First, of course, Columbus, a Genoese explorer, having been rejected by the kings of Portugal and England as potential sponsors for his trip to find a new way to the Indies (the old route having been blocked by the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Muslims, and the consequent sealing-off of land routes to the East by the Muslim conquerors), finally found new sponsors in King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Los Reyes Catolicos. And after many months, and the nautical dangers he had to pass, Christopher Columbus discovered - surely this comes as no surprise - the New World, and he claimed it for Spain.

And the second important thing that happened in Spain in 1492 was that over more than 500 years of the Reconquista, the forces of Christian Spain conquered the last remaining Muslim redoubt in the Iberian Peninsula, the Kingdom of Granada.

And the third thing that happened in 1492 in Spain was the expulsion of the Jews, who were given only a short time to end their presence (a presence that went back to long before the time of the Visigoths), and to leave Spain forever. They were expelled not because they had once ruled over Spain and remained a potential threat, but in the main because they could be expelled, and because the fanaticism of the Inquisition had transformed anti-Judaism into racial antisemitism, perhaps because the Christians of Spain had become more ferocious during the Reconquista. The influence of fighting the Reconquista might also explain the particular ferocity of Spanish treatment of the indigenous inhabitants of the New World by some - not all - of the conquistadores and their men. The Leyenda Negra, consisting of an uninterrupted narrative of Spanish atrocities, has been subject to withering criticism by historians.

But the Moors were not expelled in 1492 along with the Jews.

With the conquest of Granada, the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella now had within their dominion large numbers of Muslims, unwilling to be forcibly converted, and still a potential source of trouble, unsettlement, and revolt. The wisest policy would be to take that into account, rid Catholic Spain of the other alien element - as the Reyes Catolicos saw it -- that was understood to be too weak to resist, that is, the Jews, simply because they could be expelled without trouble, and because that might serve as a warning to the Muslims as to what might happen if they didn't behave.

As to the Moors, the Catholic kings would bide their time. In the terms of the Capitulation and treaties, the Muslims of Granada were permitted to continue to practice their religion. But in 1499, Cardinal Ximenes (he of the celebrated Complutensian Polyglot), insisted that the Muslims should not be allowed to remain, as practicing Muslims, in Spain. They began to leave, not all at once, and not overnight. And many stayed, stayed and practiced Islam openly (where the Spanish government's writ did not completely run) or covertly, as secret Muslims. They were not reconciled to their defeat, and they harbored -- how could they not, given what Islam taught? - revanchist dreams. It was only in 1568, however, under Philip II, that the Muslims of Spain, the so-called "Moros," were given the command to leave. And even then many stayed, and it was not until the reign of Philip III, in 1609, after a century of intermittent troubles and uprisings, that the definitive expulsion of the Moors took place.

Why does any of this matter? Why make a big deal of this, given that in the end both the Jews and the Moors were expelled? Why worry about that phrase "the Jews and the Moors were expelled in 1492"?

Well, because it is indeed used by Muslim propagandists, and also by those in the West who want so eagerly to believe that Muslims have been the victims of Europe, of European "colonialism" and European "racism." And in that false narrative, the phrase "the Spanish expelled the Jews and the Moors in 1492" is valuable. Those who use such a phrase, and efface the difference between the two groups, allow themselves, and those who listen to them, to ignore the fact that the Jews had been inoffensive, had contributed greatly to Spanish culture and development, had never ruled over the Christians, not in Spain and not anywhere else, and had no designs to do so, whereas the Muslim armies had arrived in the eighth century, and had conquered almost all of the Iberian Peninsula save a strip in the far north. Some - Maria Rosa Menocal being only the latest - have sung the praises of a "convivencia" of whose existence they are convinced and make much of, but apparently the people who lived through that "conviviencia" were not quite so convinced. For Maimonides wrote, in his famous Epistle to the Yemen, to other Jews telling them that the treatment of Jews by Muslims in Spain was horrifying, and as for the Christians of Spain, apparently they did not agree that "convivencia" really existed either, because they spent half-a-millennium trying to push out the Muslim (Arab and Berber) invaders.

The Jews were expelled in 1492 not because they were constituted a real threat, but because they were largely helpless. The Muslims were expelled only over time, because time after time they were given chances to prove that they would not harbor revanchist plans of re-conquest of what they had lost, and over the next century, they proved that they could not be trusted.

And now, more than 500 years later, we have Muslim propagandists telling us that "Muslims are the new Jews." They want us not to find out that for many centuries, right up until the 18th century, Muslims raided up and down the coasts of Western Europe, seizing property, killing many, kidnapping others - men, women and children - and bringing them back to Muslim lands where they were enslaved. They went as far as Ireland, and even once to Iceland. The people of the coasts of Europe were well aware, for centuries, of the Muslim threat from the south. And when Europeans became military more powerful, so they could defend those coasts, the Muslims continued to attack Christian shipping in the Mediterranean, seizing cargoes and ships, and kidnapping Christian seamen and enslaving them. Only the reaction of the Americans against the Barbary Pirates, and then the final exasperated seizure of Algeria by the French in 1830, put an end to those attacks. And in Eastern Europe, too, and in the Caucasus, other Muslims enslaved south Slavs - took them as slaves - and raided, too, especially for Christian women who were brought back for harems from Georgia and Circassia.

Yet we are not to understand that the Jihad never let up, that is, never let up until the Western world managed to become militarily stronger and fight back successfully. There was not, then, any foolish because vain attempt to win Muslim hearts and minds. It was understood by everyone who had anything to do with the matter - John Quincy Adams, as a diplomat, or General Gorchakov, as a military man - that Muslim mendacity and duplicity and enmity toward the Infidels was permanent and only other measures would succeed in protecting the non-Muslims from Muslim depredations. Of course no one in his right mind, for the past 1400 years, in the Western world, would ever have contemplated allowing Muslims to settle deep within their own, non-Muslim, midst - that is, no one until the last few decades, when in a collective act of criminal negligence, the political and media elites of the Western world, forgetting all of their own history, allowed exactly that settlement deep within by Muslims, that is, by those who regarded their Infidel lands as a still-to-be-conquered Dar al-Harb.

Part of the criminal negligence was based on extraordinary forgetfulness about their own history. And part of that forgetfulness is expressed in that phrase that is so misleading, the one with which I started this little essay, about how in 1492, "the Jews and the Moors" were expelled from Spain.

Now, about forgetfulness. I wrote that there were four important events that took place in Spain in 1492. The first was the sponsoring by Ferdinand and Isabella (with the actual funding coming from a Monjte, one of the tribe of the soon-to-be-expelled Jews) of the voyages of Columbus to find a new route to the Indies, given that the conquest of Constantinople, and final triumph of the Osmanli Turks over the remaining Orthodox all over Anatolia barred that land route to the East that had remained to merchants from Western Christendom.

And the second was the conquest of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold. Much later, in the early 19th century, that conquest would become a subject for Romantic writers both in North America and in Western Europe. When Chateaubriand wrote "Le Dernier des Abencerages" and Washington Irving wrote "Tales of the Alhambra," both wove fictions about the marvels of Muslim Spain, and that celebrated "convivencia." Later, careless people right up to the present day would take those fictions about the Moor's last sigh, and so on, and present it as historical truth. See, do, The Ornament of the World by Maria Rosa Menocal or, still better, google and find out what has been written about her book at this site.

And the third thing was the expulsion of the Jews, Spain's great loss and Amsterdam's (and later, Salonika's) great gain.

But I seem to remember that above I wrote that four important things happened in Spain in 1492. My god, what was the fourth?

Oh, yes, I remember. The fourth thing was the publication of Nebrija's Gramatica de la Lengua Castellana, the first grammar not only of Spanish, but of any Romance language. For Spain, and for philology, what the good doctor of Salamanca did was important. So remember that name: Antonio de Nebrija, or Antonius Nebrissensis in his fashionably Latin version, and his place in the annals of philology. Come to think of it, some philologists in modern Spain have a literary significance that philologists in other lands (save possibly Russia) do not have. Think of Menendez Pidal, Menendez y Pelayo, and the man Borges called, in polemical fashion, "Don Americo Castro."

There. Now when someone asks you, not what you had for breakfast, or what did grandfather do in the war, daddy, but rather, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, in fourteen hundred and ninety-two, what else happened in Spain, you will be well-prepared, you will be ready to tell them. Please do. And please make sure you do not say that "in 1492 the Jews and the Moors were expelled." And be ready to explain exactly why it didn't happen that way, and why it matters.

Here endeth the lesson.

Nonetheless, the initiative is just as insidious -- and, not coincidentally, in alignment with Sharia provisions calling for the isolation of female apostates from Islam. After all, this is still a marginally free country, isn't it? Why should Rifqa not be allowed to receive communications from people who have been encouraged to write to her on "blogs that malign Islam"? And remember that by "maligning Islam" in this context, what is meant is telling the truth about Islam's doctrines of violence and supremacism. But even if people writing to Rifqa really are maligning Islam, is that now illegal in the U.S.? Maligning Christianity is not illegal. Maligning Judaism is not illegal. Would Rifqa be allowed to receive letters that malign those religions? Is the person screening her mail going to hold up letters that she thinks malign Islam? On what grounds?

Pamela has trenchant and important observations on this here.

"Guardian to review Rifqa's mail: Attorneys in dependency case reach common ground on a few matters," by Meredith "Hijab" Heagney for the Columbus Dispatch, December 25 (thanks to Pamela):

Attorneys for Fathima Rifqa Bary and her parents haven't agreed on much, but they have settled a couple of small matters in the case of the 17-year-old runaway.

They have agreed that all mail to Rifqa from people who aren't relatives will be reviewed by her guardian ad litem, the attorney appointed by the court to represent her interests, to "ensure that no inappropriate messages are forwarded to Ms. Bary."

They also have agreed that Rifqa cannot have any contact with Blake Lorenz, Beverly Lorenz or Brian Williams until her counselor determines whether it would be in her best interest.

The Lorenzes are pastors in Florida whom Rifqa stayed with when she ran away. Authorities have said that Williams, an evangelical in his 20s who baptized Rifqa, drove her to the Greyhound bus station in Columbus when she ran away from home in July.

Rifqa, a New Albany High School student, said she left her Northeast Side home because her father, Mohamed Bary, threatened to kill her for converting from Islam to Christianity. Mr. Bary denies the accusation, and authorities in Ohio and Florida have found that she was not in danger.

A dependency case to determine where Rifqa should live is making its way through Franklin County Juvenile Court, where the attorneys frequently file motions on minute details of Rifqa's life and activities.

For instance, Omar Tarazi, the attorney for Mr. Bary and his wife, Aysha, had asked that third-party messages to Rifqa be reviewed by Franklin County Children Services, which has custody of the girl. He was concerned about letter-writing campaigns to Rifqa publicized on blogs that malign Islam.

That resulted in the agreement to have her guardian look at them. The magistrate's order says "incoming mail" but does not specify whether that includes e-mail.

The two sides also have argued over whether Rifqa's counselor should be a woman. Rifqa's attorneys, Kort Gatterdam and Angela Lloyd, have accused the Barys of forcing Rifqa to submit to Islam by making her see a male counselor, because she was raised in a male-dominated home.

Tarazi disputed that, saying Gatterdam and Lloyd file documents "containing baseless assertions that would be characterized as nothing more than religious and cultural bigotry."...

Unlikely at best. Rifqa's attorneys have steadfastly ignored the apostasy issue -- and substantially weakened their case by doing so.

“Hate the sin.  Love the sinner.”

That phrase on sin and sinners is of the most popular phrases in Christianity.  It is most often used when discussing homosexuality.  Evangelical Christians are known for saying we must hate the sin of homosexuality but love gay people themselves.  Where can you find those words in the Bible? Well, nowhere actually.  It is a quote from Mahatma Gandhi.  However, St. Augustine did say,

“With love for mankind and hatred of sins.”

The Bible is clear that Christians must speak out against sin.  In fact, to approve of sin is a sin itself.  Romans 1 actually refers to homosexual acts being a sin when it says:

“They not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” Romans 1:32

It is a sin to approve of sinful behavior, but herein lies a problem.  It is now considered hateful in America to speak out against homosexuality as a sin.  Even if you love homosexuals as people, you are considered a bigot if you believe that God meant sex only for married heterosexuals. Enter a new proposed gay crimes law in Uganda, Rick Warren, and Rachel Maddow.

Maddow has been reporting on a proposed law in Uganda that could lead to life imprisonment of gays or the death penalty for active homosexuals with HIV, among other things. She has called out Rick Warren to publicly speak out against the suggested law, and even found ways to blame him for that law being promoted.  Maddow gives Warren no pass, even though he has been one of the greatest and most influential global AIDS activists of all time.  His compassion toward people – including gay – means nothing if Warren doesn’t openly accept the gay lifestyle.  Throughout her coverage Maddow has mocked Warren and twisted information to make him the bad guy.

Warren has now made a strong public statement calling Uganda to reject the law and pastors to speak out against it.

“The potential law is unjust, extreme and un-Christian toward homosexuals…ALL life, no matter how humble or broken, whether unborn or dying, is precious to God. My wife, Kay, and I have devoted our lives and our ministry to saving the lives of people, including homosexuals, who are HIV positive. It would be inconsistent to save some lives and wish death on others. We’re not just pro-life. We are whole life.”

Maddow mentions that Warren has suggested some of the news coverage against him has been based on falsehoods.  Maddow says all her reporting has been spot on, and then gives Warren an invitation to come answer her reporting. She ignores the fact that Warren’s public statement actually responds to the majority of her accusations against him and corrects misinformation that Maddow reported.  Of course, Maddow never even mentions (let alone addresses) that part of his statement.

We are in trouble in this country if a person who loves gay people but believes homosexuality is a sin is put in the same camp as those who would pass laws to kill gays. Can’t people love the Christian but hate his views on homosexuality?  NewsReal’s editor David Swindle for example, has disagreed with me wholeheartedly about gay marriage (he blogged on it here,) yet he has never attacked me as a bigot for my view. It would be nice if Maddow and others could offer that same respect to Warren.

Related posts:

1. NewsReal Sunday: Pots and Kettles: Maddow and Schaeffer Call Evangelicals “Village Idiots” Who Must be Excluded from American Political Life
2. NewsReal Sunday: The Trucking and Gravel Issue Should Not be “Fought with Blood,” Either
3. NewsReal Sunday: The Abortion Battle Should Not Be Fought With Blood

By now, you’ve all seen President Obama’s speech, wherein he agreed to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan (though most definitely not a surge of the kind used in Iraq and suggested by many for quite some time now, we are assured). Now, Rachel Maddow often tries to walk a peculiar line in which she appears anti-war and drifting close to anti-military, yet somehow still pro-defense and pro “a stronger America.” Obama’s latest decision would appear to fall afoul of her anti-war stances. One might think she would take this time to examine her stance, and wonder if it isn’t misguided if even her hero Obama has decided not to end the war in Afghanistan. But no, Tuesday night she just used it as a cheap excuse to blame everything on former president George W. Bush

Really, after the last eight years, one would think that “this is all Bush’s fault” would have run out of any sort of usefulness and been retired as the sad old fallback cliche that it is. But alas, no such luck.

Maddow described Obama’s speech as one he had to give because “[he] is stuck explaining his choice among all the, frankly, pretty bad options available to fix Bush‘s supposedly ‘begun well’ war.”

That last quote was, of course, an attempt to turn a normal phrase into a bush malapropism–an activity which apparently is still great fun at leftist dinner parties even after all these years. Then Maddow had this to say:

“President Bush bragged in a lot of places about how awesome he thought things had gone in Afghanistan, even as both Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, not only survived, but survived unscathed and stayed in business as militant leaders, just now relocated eastward slightly.  If Omar went from Kandahar to Quetta in Pakistan, that means he moved slightly less than the distance between Wichita and Topeka.”

Now, Rhodes Scholar that Maddow is, we’re sure she’s aware that, despite the difference, if Omar and Co. moved just that far, the geopolitical realities changed drastically. Instead of being in Afghanistan–a country the US was at war with, and where troops could operate freely–he was in Pakistan, a touchy ally who would not take kindly to US troops operating openly on their soil.

She then went on to rant about the “secret CIA drone war” taking place in Pakistan at the direction of the former president. She asked why we have to use the CIA, which she says,

“effectively functions as a fifth secret branch of the U.S. military now”

(And wow, that must be a big secret, if second-rate political talk show hosts know all about it). She wondered aloud why we couldn’t use the real Army in Pakistan. If she really doesn’t know the answer to that, we’re both shocked and appalled.

We’re left with two alternatives–either Maddow doesn’t understand how her arguments contradict themselves–”Don’t escalate the war! Oh, but send our troops into ‘friendly’ nations without authorization!”–or she really wishes for us to declare war on Pakistan in the name of finding the remnants of Al Qaeda hiding there. Although really, if it’s the latter, she’s only taking her lead from former statements by then-candidate Obama. The only thread of logic we can see running through these actions and statements is simple–if it lets them blame it all on Bush, and cover their actions with the “cleaning up Bush’s mistakes” argument, then it’s a good argument.

After so long, doesn’t that logic ring awfully hollow to the rest of the country?

Iranian laws about the Web are purposely kept vague. Ahmed Batebi, the dissident who recently escaped Tehran after eight years in prison, told me that “The regime can arrest people and bloggers for any reason precisely because the laws are not clear.”

A journalist in the city of Yazd recently reported several cases of bloggers being shut down or involved in lawsuits due to readers’ comments. And on Nov. 14, local Iranian press reported that a new police unit was formed to fight “insults and the spreading of lies” on the Internet—another phrase which effectively bans any criticism of the regime.

It’s hard to believe in light of this Internet repression, but Iran’s president is himself a blogger. “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Personal Memos” is the place where he goes to vent and stay in touch with the common folk. He says he allots himself 15 minutes a week to write on his blog, but admits that at times he exceeds this limit.

via David Keyes: Ahmadinejad, the Blogger – WSJ.com.