Listen for yourself
In FrontPage this morning I analyze the heated and sometimes illuminating debate on Hannity’s radio show Monday between Suhail Khan and David Horowitz:
[…] Amid all his fog of verbiage, Khan never denied that his father had been a founder of the MSA and was also involved in ISNA. He never denied that those groups were linked to the Brotherhood, or that the Brotherhood’s goal in the U.S. was “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.” He never denied that he had spoken at CAIR events, and came up with no convincing explanation when asked why he would have done so if he really shunned groups with any connections to jihad terror and the stealth jihad agenda of Islamic supremacism.
Consequently it is difficult, if not impossible, for any objective observer to take Khan’s protestations that he is simply an ordinary American conservative, working for small government and fiscal responsibility. Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, and a prominent American public figure, while active in the conservative movement, spoke at events sponsored by genuinely racist, white supremacist organizations (as opposed to those falsely characterized as such by a Leftist media bent on destroying its conservative opponents). Imagine further that when asked about these speaking engagements, this public figure grew indignant, charged that his interlocutors were engaging in a witchhunt, and claimed ignorance of the unsavory links of his associates.
How long would such a man last in the public arena without being called to account? How long would he be allowed to get away with dissembling, obfuscating, confusing the issue, and making counter-charges, instead of honestly addressing his associations and their implications? The Hannity Show featuring David Horowitz and Suhail Khan, if the mainstream media retained even a shred of the objectivity to which it pretends, would be the final nail in the coffin of Suhail Khan’s reputation as a solid conservative and loyal American committed to Constitutional values. But Khan continues to be given a free pass, doubtless because of the thoughtless multiculturalism of today’s mainstream journalists: he is a Muslim being challenged by non-Muslims? Then he is right and they are wrong, and he must be protected from their ignorant, racist, bigoted, hateful attacks.
Such is the state of journalism, and of the country, in this third year of the reign of Barack Obama.