Posted on 10/22/2003 11:43:33 PM PDT by kattracks
ALEC “The Bloviator” Baldwin has a new bosom buddy: Beltway Republican strategist Grover Norquist.
The Bush-bashing actor-turned-activist and the Muslim vote-courting political organizer joined together at a Washington, D.C.-area conference last weekend to perpetuate bald lies about the Patriot Act and to oppose the “repressive” War on Terror (repressing terrorist suspects apparently being a bad thing).
Baldwin and Norquist’s panel, titled “Strange Bedfellows,” was sponsored by the ultraliberal group People For the American Way (PFAW). When PFAW head and panel participant Ralph Neas ranted about the lack of judicial and congressional oversight of the Justice Department’s terror investigations, the audience applauded passionately. According to National Review Online reporter Byron York, Baldwin (the “moderator”) then turned to Norquist for comment.
“Ditto,” Norquist replied. Never mind the flat-out falsity of Neas’ claim. The smarmy Baldwin looked at his panelists and proudly remarked: “Can’t you feel the love?”
Blech. Wasn’t he supposed to have left our country by now? If Alec Baldwin ever does make good on his election-year promise, he should buy an extra Louis Vuitton suitcase and pack up Grover Norquist as a carry-on companion for the one-way trip to Tora Bora. Or Riyadh. Or Paris. Wherever.
Norquist’s kissy-kissy partnership with a washed-up Hollywood Clintonite is the least of his unseemly alliances.
Consider: The conference they attended last weekend was hosted by the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF), which was co-founded in 1997 by Sami Al-Arian — the former University of South Florida professor charged earlier this year as a fund-raiser and organizer for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. The money Al-Arian allegedly raised went to terrorist operations overseas that killed at least two Americans. In 2001, Al-Arian’s NCPPF gave Norquist an award for his work to abolish the use of secret intelligence evidence in terrorism cases. Al-Arian was the keynote speaker. Insight investigative reporter Ken Timmerman says Norquist told the magazine he remains “proud” of the award.
Among other major participants and sponsors of the NCPPF conference was the American Muslim Council (AMC). In January, the group accused President Bush of “calling on God to kill innocent Iraqi children.” The next day, the group instructed mosque directors to block FBI counterterrorism efforts. Late last month, AMC founder Abdurahman Alamoudi was charged with illegally accepting money from Libya for his efforts to persuade the United States to lift sanctions against that nation.
Alamoudi’s arrest is part of a larger Justice Department investigation of terrorism funding focused on Saudi-backed Islamic foundations and businesses based in Herndon, Va. A so-called “moderate,” Alamoudi is on record praising the terrorist group Hezbollah and proclaiming: “We are all followers of Hamas.”
Norquist’s lobbying firm is registered as a lobbyist for Alamoudi. Alamoudi provided seed money for Norquist’s Islamic Institute, which shares space with Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform group. The institute is run by Alamoudi deputy and former AMC government relations director Khaled Saffuri. Saffuri and Norquist have worked closely with Bush senior adviser Karl Rove to give radical Muslim activists access to the White House. No doubt because of their efforts, Alamoudi was invited to a White House prayer service after the Sept. 11 attacks.
If any Democrat activist had such shady connections, conservatives would be on him like white on rice. Instead, Norquist has gotten away with smearing his critics.
“The conservative movement cannot be associated with racism or bigotry,” Norquist lectured in a letter attacking Gaffney earlier this year. No, Mr. Norquist. The conservative movement cannot afford to be associated with race-card-playing apologists who refuse to cut their lucrative ties to terrorist sympathizers.
The Republican Party doesn’t need this Achilles’ heel. Take him away, Alec Baldwin, please.
Michelle Malkin can be reached by e-mail at malkin@comcast.net.
Nobody on this thread has done so. But Norquist's activist pals are pretty sketchy to say the least. The AMC and NCPPF, as you can read in the article, are both founded by terrorists/sympathizers. Many of the activist Arab groups do not attempt to hit their anti-Semitism; they should rightly be condemned along with all other racist groups.
Doesn't mean that Ahmed from down the street is a terrorist, and Malkin didn't say so.
You must remember that the source for this "fact" is none other than Grover Nordquisling himself!
As a Floridian who worked for Bush at Ground Zero in Palm Beach during Election 2000, I can tell you with great certaintly that the difference in that election was the Florida Chapter of FR - not Nordquisling!
Yes, you may quote me as the primary source for this "fact" as I was there.
OK, OK, perhaps a bit of hyperbole but I must say that I never did see Grover down there in Florida during that period of time.
Maybe, he was vacationing in Saudi Arabia at the time!
Is it true, as I've seen reported, that Arab Americans cast a majority of their votes for Bush in 2000 -- a number that might have been the difference in his winning Florida? Why do Republicans want to brand all Arab-Americans as terrorists or Satanists, or the like? Bush apparently doesn't share this desire - - and it's hard to blame him if they did indeed help put him in the White House.Norquist sees that Muslim-Americans are indeed natural allies of the GOP and conservatives. For the most part they are small entrepreneurs, more willing to work long hours than depend on handouts. They are also socially conservative. As for their religion, even the most devout chose to live in America for a reason, and more often than not that reason is a distaste for Islamic governance. There's a reason the 911 hijackers avoided Muslim-American communities: they would not have blended in.
Unfortunately there are those who, for whatever reason, hate Islam in general, and their views have gained some ground in the conservative community, to our potential electoral detriment. Norquist has been fighting this, and now the Islamophobes are targetting him.
It amazes me sometimes that those who were so willing to trust President Bush regarding Iraq (as I was) are not only unwilling to trust him but are quite willing to assign him nefarious motives regarding Islam in general, the West Bank/Gaza, and now Grover Norquist.
-Eric
Well said! One gets the impression from some folks around here that Bush is to be considered a traitor if he doesn't automatically treat Arabs like traitors. This kind of reflexive group-hate mentality led to the internment camps, in which a lot of loyal Americans spent four years merely because they were of Japanese extraction.
Well said! One gets the impression from some folks around here that Bush is to be considered a traitor if he doesn't automatically treat Arabs like traitors. This kind of reflexive group-hate mentality led to the internment camps, in which a lot of loyal Americans spent four years merely because they were of Japanese extraction.Also, such demonization of entire ethnic/religious groups is a twisted form of collectivism. I've always considered both conservatism and libertarianism to be ideologies that rejected all forms of collective judgement in favor of each individual standing on his or her own merits.
-Eric
Pollster John Zogby says there is not a great deal of information on Muslim voting, but "my data indicates that it was tilted Democratic in 2000. It went more for Gore and Nader than for Bush." Michael Barone, author of the authoritative Almanac of American Politics, argues that it is impossible to draw an accurate picture of Muslim voters, given the lack of exit-poll information. As for the claim that Muslims gave Bush his winning margin, Barone says simply, "Any 538 voters in Florida can claim credit for winning the presidency for Bush."
it's not PC to say such a thing - - one can only rant and rave about Arabs.
I've seen that commented on often, both on FR and on Little Green Footballs, a decidedly pro-Jewish/anti-Muslim site. The same (decidedly Democratic) can be said of the Catholic vote.
As far as ranting and raving about Arabs, you're painting with a mighty big brush here. The majority of Muslims worldwide are not Arabs, and the majority of Americans of Arab descent are Christian, and not Muslim, as the inaptly named Arab-American League would have you believe.
Norquist is not courting Arabs, he is courting Muslims, including organizations with questionable motives and activities, and Muslim leaders, such as the two that are currently under arrest. He used Al-Arian and his brother-in-law as poster boys against "secret evidence" in the '90's: one has since been deported and the other is in jail for leading the U.S. branch of Islamic Jihad. The Islamic Institute, which Norquist co-founded with Suffari (who used to work for Alamoudi), accepted a $10,000 gift and a $10,000 loan from Alamoudi, an avowed Hamas and Hezbollah supporter who is now in jail for attempting to smuggle money into Syria, and is suspected of recruiting militant Islamics for the U.S. Chaplain Corps.
I really thought that once Norquist's Muslim pals (who've been under investigation for years) got nabbed, he'd put a lid on it. Instead, he throws in his lot with Alex Baldwin and assorted other Bush-bashing malcontents.
The man is either unbalanced, dangerous, or both.
No, it's too many of my fellow conservatives who paint with too broad a broad brush. The distinctions you point out are nearly never noted in the, yes, anti ARAB ranting that is a fixture of talk radio and of some other conservative sounding boards. For instance, Saddam (obviously a vile chap) is regularly talked about as if he was an orthodox Muslim of the same stripe as Al Queda-- when, as I understand it, he is/was a secularist and therefore hated by the fundamentalists. Yet it's constantly said that the war on Saddam was part of the war on Islamists.
You have to acknowledge that Islam is being condemned by many conservatives as a monolithic, undifferentiated force that hates America through and through - - - as if this also applies, necessarily, to Muslims who live down the street. Bush isn't buying that, so does it make me a dupe or traitor to share his skepticism?
Nor am I retracting my hope that Jewish Americans in genuinely significant numbers will at some point abandon their rigid Democratic allegiance - - - which, contrary to your statement, is far, far more predominent (about 80 percent or above pro-Dem, I believe) than whatever overall Democratic leanings still exist in today's Catholic community (didn't Catholics pretty much split evenly or at most 60-40, btw Gore and Bush?). Unfortunately, I'm not as confident as many freepers that Bush's (correct) pro-Israel stance is going to wean significant numbers of Jews from left-liberalism; Nixon's strong pro-Israel stance didn't, nor did Reagan's.
As Mark Stein pointed out, there are a LOT of people in our government (Wilson, for instance) on their payroll (See excerpt of his article below). It isn't much of a stretch to figure that people like Scott Ritter and those starting up this new radio network are pay-rolled by them, too.
Mark Steyn: With friends like the Saudis . . .
Chicago Sun-Times ^ | October 19 2003 | Mark Steyn
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1003888/posts
Excerpt:
....That would also include the pro-Saudi Middle East Institute, whose "adjunct scholar" is one Joseph C. Wilson IV.
Remember him? He's the fellow at the center of the Bob-Novak-published-the-name-of-my-CIA-wife scandal.
The agency sent him to look into the European intelligence stories about Saddam Hussein trying to buy uranium in Africa. He went to Niger, drank mint tea with government flacks, and then wrote a big whiny piece in the New York Times after the White House declined to accept his assurances there was nothing going on.
He was never an intelligence specialist, he's no longer a "career diplomat," but he is, like so many other retired ambassadors, on the House of Saud's payroll.
And the Saudis were vehemently opposed to war with Saddam.
Think about that. To investigate Saddam's attempted acquisition of uranium, the United States government sent a man in the pay of the Saudi government.
The Saudis set up schools that turn out terrorists.
They set up Islamic lobby groups that put spies in our military bases and terror recruiters in our prisons.
They set up think tanks that buy up and neuter the U.S. diplomatic corps.
And their ambassador's wife funnels charitable donations to the 9/11 hijackers.
Muslims should not be involved in American politics for the same reason people don't keep rattlesnakes for house pets. The radical extremism of Muslims is the reason we have the Patriot Act, whose function is to keep these radicals from hiding behind the very civil and constitutional proctections that they seek to destroy for everyone else.
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