February 9, 2006
One of the most annoying things about Brit Hume's "grapevine" segment, is that his stories are so poorly documented that often times you've got to spend serious time running google searches before you can find the source for whatever the heck it is he's talking about. And half the time Hume's source turns out to be some far-right blog, or a right-wing propagandist webiste such as Newsmax. In fact, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that Hume's "grapevine" segment is nothing more than a televised digest of right-wing blogs but without the hyperlinks, meaning that his claims are both disingenuous and difficult to verify. Today's Grapevine is a good example of this:
Conservatives claim to be offended when foreign mobs burn the American flag and issue threats against America. But the one thing they hate even more than that is when foreign mobs burn someone else's flag while ignoring the U.S. completely. And the whole issue of the Danish "Mohammed" cartoons is one such situation. Most protesters are angry at Denmark, burning Danish flags, boycotting Danish products and attacking Danish embassies. Other than an incident involving an angry mob charging a military base in Afghanistan, the U.S. has largely been ignored in this matter. This is true even though a few right-wing rags such as the New York Sun have gone out of their way to reprint the offending cartoons in their pages. But it's been to no avail. The U.S. of A. has shown up to this party as the frumpy plain-Jane, while all eyes and all the attention is focused the cute little Danish friend we came with. Boo, hoo, say conservatives.
And so like it or not, whether the facts warrant it or not, righ-wingers are going to find some way to turn this hubub into an attack on America. Tonight, for instance, Tucker Carlson is running a show on what these riots "mean for America." And now, Brit Hume is telling us that "some American Muslims" are "raising concerns" about a sculpture of Mohammed that can be found inside the Supreme Court. Sounds scary doesn't it?
But wait a minute... what Muslims are raising these concerns? Hume doesn't say. Is it a lot of Muslims? Hume doesn't say. Are they important, powerful Muslims? Again, Hume doesn't say. For all we know it could be a Pakistani convenience store clerk and one of his customers. On the other hand, it could be the members of the two million strong Secret Sleeper-cell Army Of Osama. We just don't know, and Hume offers no details to clear this up for us. Nor does Hume source this claim in any way. So I did what I always do: I ran some google searches.
Now, you'd think that if Mulsims in America were making a big deal out of the Mohammed sculptures in the Supreme Court building, then someone other than Brit Hume would be reporting about it, right? Well, not really. I did find this CNN story on Sandra Day O'Connor that mentions a 1997 Supreme Court case in which a Moslem organization had tried to have the image removed (the court ruled against the plaintiffs). In addition, there's this Garavi Gijarat story titled "Mohammed sculpture at top US court draws mild rebuke." The story appears to reference the same 1997 court case, but quotes Moslem leaders as saying:
Is this what Hume is referring to? Again, it's impossible to say. One thing's for certain though: it'd sure be hard to get Americans all riled up about the ominous Islamic Threat from Within by noting that some American Muslims disagree with the sculpture in question, but "appreciate the thought" anyway.
Muslims across the world are expressing outrage over those now-infamous Danish cartoons. And some American Muslims are raising concerns about one depiction of the prophet inside the Supreme Court.
A sculpture of Muhammed is included among 18 stone "lawgivers" that have adorned the building since it opened in 1935. It depicts the prophet with a Koran in one hand and a sword in the other.
Conservatives claim to be offended when foreign mobs burn the American flag and issue threats against America. But the one thing they hate even more than that is when foreign mobs burn someone else's flag while ignoring the U.S. completely. And the whole issue of the Danish "Mohammed" cartoons is one such situation. Most protesters are angry at Denmark, burning Danish flags, boycotting Danish products and attacking Danish embassies. Other than an incident involving an angry mob charging a military base in Afghanistan, the U.S. has largely been ignored in this matter. This is true even though a few right-wing rags such as the New York Sun have gone out of their way to reprint the offending cartoons in their pages. But it's been to no avail. The U.S. of A. has shown up to this party as the frumpy plain-Jane, while all eyes and all the attention is focused the cute little Danish friend we came with. Boo, hoo, say conservatives.
And so like it or not, whether the facts warrant it or not, righ-wingers are going to find some way to turn this hubub into an attack on America. Tonight, for instance, Tucker Carlson is running a show on what these riots "mean for America." And now, Brit Hume is telling us that "some American Muslims" are "raising concerns" about a sculpture of Mohammed that can be found inside the Supreme Court. Sounds scary doesn't it?
But wait a minute... what Muslims are raising these concerns? Hume doesn't say. Is it a lot of Muslims? Hume doesn't say. Are they important, powerful Muslims? Again, Hume doesn't say. For all we know it could be a Pakistani convenience store clerk and one of his customers. On the other hand, it could be the members of the two million strong Secret Sleeper-cell Army Of Osama. We just don't know, and Hume offers no details to clear this up for us. Nor does Hume source this claim in any way. So I did what I always do: I ran some google searches.
Now, you'd think that if Mulsims in America were making a big deal out of the Mohammed sculptures in the Supreme Court building, then someone other than Brit Hume would be reporting about it, right? Well, not really. I did find this CNN story on Sandra Day O'Connor that mentions a 1997 Supreme Court case in which a Moslem organization had tried to have the image removed (the court ruled against the plaintiffs). In addition, there's this Garavi Gijarat story titled "Mohammed sculpture at top US court draws mild rebuke." The story appears to reference the same 1997 court case, but quotes Moslem leaders as saying:
"The court ruled that the good outweighed the bad ... and the community`s response was one that was very tempered," said Edina Lekovic, spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Washington. "They (community leaders) came out and said that they disagreed with the court ruling but they appreciated the thought and the intention behind the sculpture."
Is this what Hume is referring to? Again, it's impossible to say. One thing's for certain though: it'd sure be hard to get Americans all riled up about the ominous Islamic Threat from Within by noting that some American Muslims disagree with the sculpture in question, but "appreciate the thought" anyway.
posted by Patriot's Quill at 6:16 AM
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