I checked them out, and thought they were worth a read here...
December 09, 2003
Gaffney versus Norquist
On his show tonight Hugh Hewitt led with a full hour devoted to a joint interview of Frank Gaffney and Grover Norquist regarding Gaffney's Frontpage article (discussed below earlier today): "A troubling influence."
The thesis of Gaffney's article is that Norquist has worked on behalf of, and together with, an American fifth column of Islamists and Islamist organizations. According to Gaffney, Norquist has successfully sought to turn his political connections to the advantage of these Islamist individuals and organizations.
I first heard Gaffney present a skeletal version of this argument in person at the Conservative Political Action Conference this past January. Norquist appeared and responded later that day. As I recall, the gist of Norquist's response was that Gaffney's criticism of him was bigoted and that Gaffney's criticism unfairly impugned his patriotism. Norquist tearfully invoked his family background in avowing his allegiance to the United States.
I was struck at the time by the vacuity of Norquist's response. It is clear that Norquist is devoting substantial professional efforts to the advancement of interests that have brought him into close contact with a number of unsavory characters and placed him in circles where he has become acquainted with key Islamist players.
In his interview this afternoon, Hugh focused the inquiry on critical factual disputes that go to the heart of the issues raised by Gaffney's column. Norquist flatly denied certain of Gaffney's charges while avoiding others. Again, I was most struck by the rhetorical devices used by Norquist to respond to Gaffney.
When asked by Hugh about the American Islamic Council and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Norquist not only denied any connection but professed a kind of agnosticism about their means and ends that is utterly incredible -- i.e., not believable. In his concluding remarks, Norquist raised irrelevant issues about the financial status of Gaffney's organization.
Factual disputes are not usually susceptible of resolution in the kind of joint interview Hugh conducted with Gaffney and Norquist. Nevertheless, Norquist's response to Gaffney's charges on-air tonight is powerfully suggestive of the conclusion that Norquist's response is lacking in candor. Hugh will replay the interview during the third hour of his show tomorrow night. Listen if you can and let us know what you think.
Powerline Blog link
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Grover Norquist and Frank Gaffney, Grudge Match?
Hugh Hewitt moderated a debate this evening that was a lot more illuminating than that of the Democrats. Hewitt hosted Frank Gaffney and Grover Norquist, the latter of which was one of the subjects of the former's article in FrontPage.com's new article, A Troubling Influence. The article delineates in great detail the extent of the influence that radical Islamists have had on conservative circles, including but not exclusive to Grover Norquist. I haven't read the article in detail -- I plan to do so over the next day or so -- but I had read stories about the article and I was familiar with the general themes. The accusations are deeply disturbing. As Power Line capsulizes it:
The thesis of Gaffney's article is that Norquist has worked on behalf of, and together with, an American fifth column of Islamists and Islamist organizations. According to Gaffney, Norquist has successfully sought to turn his political connections to the advantage of these Islamist individuals and organizations.
In an odd way, not having read the article, I felt like I had a better perspective on the debate itself. Instead of calibrating arguments in my own head based on my knowledge of the material, I was forced to listen in the moment and try to make a judgement based on detail and presentation. Both men communicate well and obviously have public-speaking experience, and so neither had a technical advantage over the other. Hugh tried to keep both men focused on facts, reeled them in when they started to wander into personal ad hominem attacks, and forced them to answer critical questions that seemed to be avoided.
In my mind, Frank Gaffney clearly spoke with more conviction and more factual presentation than Norquist. Norquist started off the debate by challenging Gaffney to come up with "just one" specific charge, and Gaffney continually responded during the one-hour segment with specifics. Norquist, however, never acknowledged Gaffney's presentations. He would start off after each charge by saying something to the effect of "I appreciate the opportunity to refute this" or "Journalists have looked into this and found nothing." I find that type of approach a bit annoying after the third or fourth time; it's a mannerism that allows the speaker to gather his thoughts while he tries to continue holding the mike. Norquist, who had to have read the article (he said he had), should have been prepared for Gaffney's charges and had responses ready.
By the end of the segment, Gaffney had made several specific charges regarding Norquist's association with people such as Sami al-Arian and other known Islamists with ties to terrorist groups or charity front groups, and Norquist was left decrying Gaffney's attacks on his "patriotic" associates and insisting that people read his web site, as if an organization's web site substitutes for an independent investigation. At one point, he accused Gaffney of writing the article to raise funds for Gaffney's organization, implying it was bankrupt.
It seemed to me that of the two, Gaffney kept his arguments to factual statements, ones that could be refuted or affirmed by indepedent investigation, while Norquist's arguments deteriorated almost exclusively into passive-aggressive personal attacks, such as, "I ask everyone I know why Frank says these things about me, and no one can understand it," or "All Frank had to do was call the White House and ask," or "I was just 100 feet away from Frank, and all he needed to do was ask me." Gaffney focused on facts and in so doing revealed questions about Norquist's motivations; Norquist focused on motivations and made himself seem much more suspicious. If Grover Norquist intended to dispel suspicions about his motives and his character, he failed miserably.
Captain's Quarters
So, now you're saying Please don't tell me what I'm saying, and for sure do not tell other people what I am saying. A discussion does not consist of me saying A and you replying, "Ah! So you're saying B!"
I did not say that it is OK for anyone to make common cause with bad guys. I said that knowing who some of them are is an aid to finding more of them. That is not a "split hair," it is an elementary fact.
Be careful here. I am not "defending Norquist" from things he actually did, if in fact they were wrong. I am not on some mission here to claim that he is pure in all of this. I don't claim to know. What I do know is that this document which has been presented to us as containing "documented facts" contains a whole bunch of documented facts that don't tell us anything, but are being presented as if they are some sort of damning indictment.
Playing creepy organ music while telling us that some guy met in a car with Karl Rove and they talked about -- dun da DUN dun -- how to get more votes, is a trick. It is a hackneyed rhetorical trick, and when I see it, my BS detector goes on.
So I read on a little more, and I see that Osama bin Laden and al Qa'eda have been plopped into a story with Norquist, and this time it's because there's some guy at the White House that Norquist knows (no claim is made that Norquist had anything to do with him working there) whose late father was involved in all of this. Wait a minute. That's an even dirtier trick. Now the author is taking third-party mud, once dead, and throwing it at Norquist. Why Norquist? If that story is true, the White House has some more vetting to do. But instead of aiming the venom at the White House, Gaffney spews it at Norquist.
I have to conclude, after seeing a bunch of that kind of stuff, that this is a hit piece. OK, so Gaffney is on some kind of jihad. If it was against terrorists, I might be glad. But it isn't. It's against Norquist. It is a vituperative personal attack, plainly motivated by animosity, and powered by every rhetorical trick that Gaffney can summon.
Don't try to sell me this as one Saint's effort to save the Republic. It isn't that, so just stop it. National security professionals do not go on the radio and in the magazines to hurl sticks, rocks, grass, and anything else they can grab, at one specific individual as part of our ongoing anti-terrorism efforts.
If it came as a surprise to Gaffney that creepy people would be attracted by an opportunity for political access, he shouldn't have been. I doubt others were that naive, because that motion is as old as the hills. The question is whether it is dangerous. Gaffney claims it is. I don't think it's half as dangerous as not knowing who they are. I'm sure every diplomat in the Chinese embassy is a spy. Do we deport them all? No. We watch them. Spies we know about are useful, even though they're spies, because they help us find out who the other spies are that we don't know.
The problem we had after 9/11 was that we were embarrassingly ignorant about these networks. Books will be written about how that happened. For sure, Mistakes Were Made. But we can't blame Grover Norquist for that; he's a domestic politics guy with no brief in that area whatsoever.
Who did make those mistakes? And why, if our Mystery Correspondent is to be believed, are they now trying to stick Norquist with their bill?
Wahabbis! Wahabbis right here in River City! And it's all this guy's fault, say the guys whose job it was to watch for that stuff and who were caught flat-footed on 9/11.
I say it's a hit piece, and it is not motivated by any desire to improve the security of the United States. If anything, it's probably mildly harmful to the security of the United States because if there were more of those creeps out there who might have exposed themselves to us, they will now be inclined to continue to hide. The good news is, we probably have better ways of finding them now, so it may not matter.
