Diana West over at [1] Michelle Malkin's site has penned an extraordinarily kind and generous summation of the circumstances surrounding my pre-refuted interview for C-Span, which will air in its entirety [2] this coming Sunday at 8 and 11PM, after already having been refuted by Akbar Ahmed, the Chair of Islamic Studies at American University. The full transcript of what Ahmed said is [3] here, and you can watch the show featuring him [4] here. C-Span gave me no opportunity to reply to Dr. Ahmed or to interact with him at all; so [5] I did so here at Jihad Watch.

Says Diana West:

...In one of the looser interpretations of what are vaguely known as journalistic ethics, C-Span took portions of the unaired Spencer interview and showed them, in a completely separate interview that has already aired, to Akbar Ahmed, a Muslim academic from American University. Mr. Ahmed was then asked, on the air, to refute Robert's taped analysis of jihad doctrine and other now-controversial issues. Since Robert was not given the same chance to respond to Mr. Ahmed, he has exercised his Freedom of the Blogosphere and done so here--and sent it to Mr. Ahmed. "Thank you for your response. I look forward to talking soon," Mr. Ahmed replied.

It seems like an awful lot of trouble for Robert to have to go just to try to have a reasoned debate. Here's a bright idea for C-Span: Invite both men back at the same time to talk this thing out face to face.

Thanks, Diana. I'm ready anytime they are.