01/26/2002
Recently, the Wall Street Journal said that we at VDARE.COM were "cracked" for suggesting it was, well, odd that the Secret Service had an Arab guarding the president during a War on (Arab) Terrorism. We replied to them and to Ron Unz, who (being Ron Unz) re-replied. We thought the controversy was over. But there’s something about this profiling issue that really upsets the kind of people who write for the Establishment media.
The New Republic has a feature called "Idiocy Watch" in which they highlight statements made after 9/11 that don’t fit their worldview. Recently they highlighted me.
They extracted this from what I had originally written:
Recently there have been a number of news items about George W. Bush’s Arab bodyguard being thrown off a plane. They mostly focus on the question of whether racial profiling of Arab gunmen is appropriate … . My question is one that no one seems to have asked: Why does W. have an Arab bodyguard anyway? … . Anwar Sadat was assassinated by his own troops (Bin Laden and friends have been linked to that incident). But Sadat didn’t have any choice about being guarded by Arabs. Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguard. She did have a choice about being guarded by Sikhs, rather than Hindus, at a time when her troops were engaged in clearing Sikh terrorists out of the Sikh temple. In bullet-riddled retrospect, her choice was wrong … . What makes me [upset] — even madder than heck — is that Bush, who is involved in a War on Arab Terrorism, is so politically correct that he apparently sees nothing wrong with being guarded by a man who may decide, on principle, to kill him … . When FDR interned and relocated Japanese and Japanese-Americans in WWII, he was responding to the massive sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. He was basing his decision on the well-known fact that blood is thicker than water, and that people frequently put loyalty to family and religion over loyalty to the state."
— James Fulford, writing in VDARE.com, a project of Peter Brimelow’s Center For American Unity, January 9
The New Republic must find something to disagree with in those statements. But they don’t say what.
Well, recently, they've had their work cut out, denouncing Idiots to the right of them and idiots to the left of them — not only anti-American but pro-American Idiocies, including Ann Coulter’s famous call to battle that got her fired by Jonah Goldberg. (They support the firing of Ann Coulter.) That’s what they get for supporting two incompatible policies — mass immigration and foreign war.
Here’s an Idiocy they highlighted by Lowell Ponte, comparing left-wing educational institutions to the Taliban:
"Those professing, justifying, or rationalizing terrorism against America — and bullying and brainwashing students into complicity or acquiescence with their 'peace' rallies — are also destroying our universities as surely as if they crashed fuel-laden airliners into them … It is almost as if our universities have been turned into little Marxist theocratic Talibandit Afghanistans." — Talk-radio host Lowell Ponte, FrontPageMagazine.com, October 3
Just over a month later, Americans read this headline: American man captured among Taliban soldiers.
John Lindh, a product of Marin County’s left-wing high schools, had managed to get all the way to Afghanistan to fight against his country, changing his name to Abdul Humid on the way.
Lindh, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen from San Anselmo, Calif., said the Qur'an permits Muslims to kill in cases of holy war. The interview by a CNN reporter was aired in its entirety for the first time Wednesday.
"That is a question that is addressed in the Qur'an itself," Lindh told CNN.
"In certain cases, Muslims by necessity can kill and … there are situations in which a Muslim can be killed (by other Muslims)."
It seems that Ponte’s assertion about the condition of American students was not Idiocy. It also seems that the Marin County high schools have managed to produce a good student — in that Lindh knows more about radical Islam than the President of the United States, George W. "Islam means peace" Bush.
I certainly hope — perhaps Idiotically — that I am not vindicated in so dramatic a fashion.
January 26, 2002
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.