Salon tries to smear pro-freedom candidate with association with Spencer, Geller

Hasner and Spencer, November 2011

Leftist journalistic propagandist Alex Seitz-Wald tries to smear Florida Congressional candidate Adam Hasner with association with Pamela Geller, Geert Wilders, and me, as well as other freedom fighters, in "Adam Hasner: Islamophobe for Congress" in Salon today. But over at Atlas Shrugs, Pamela Geller artfully fisks him:

Rep. Michele Bachmann has gotten a lot of attention lately for her witch hunt against Muslims in the U.S. government, but she’s not alone. In addition to the four lawmakers who signed on to her letters, there are a handful of others who together might be called the Islamophobia Caucus — and their ranks are likely to swell after November, thanks in part to one of the caucus’ most outspoken members, Rep. Allen West.

Salon's "witch hunt" link goes to an interview Seitz-Wald did with Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison, who calls Bachmann's call for an investigation of Muslim Brotherhood influence in the government "galling." Seitz-Wald doesn't ask Ellison (of course) about the fact that in 2008 Ellison accepted $13,350 from the Muslim American Society (MAS) to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The Muslim American Society is a Muslim Brotherhood organization: “In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation’s major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members.” That's from the Chicago Tribune in 2004, in an article that is now carried on the Muslim Brotherhood’s English-language website, Ikhwanweb. The Muslim American Society, according to Steven Emerson, director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, “is the de facto arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. The agenda of the MAS is to … impose Islamic law in the U.S., to undermine U.S. counterterrorism policy.”

But Seitz-Wald doesn't ask Ellison about any of that. He just lets him go on about "McCarthyism."

After redistricting made West’s 22nd Florida congressional district slightly more liberal, he moved to the 18th. Running in his place is Adam Hasner, the former Florida House majority leader who abandoned a previous bid for the Senate. Hasner has already earned top-flight endorsers, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and West himself, as well as several major conservative organizations.

But perhaps a bit farther down the list is Pam Geller, the anti-Islam blogger and activist who spearheaded the effort against the so-called ground zero mosque. While she may not have officially endorsed Hasner, they’re clearly comrades in the fight against Shariah law. “Pamela [Geller] and I were on the front lines of that together, fighting to make sure that we kept her safe here,” Hasner told a Fort Lauderdale crowd in June of last year. For her part, Geller has written numerous blog posts praising Hasner, whom she declared to be “my friend.” “So many patriots and elected officials joined us, like Adam Hasner,” she wrote in June of last year. Here’s a photo of them posing together from her blog. (Hasner did not reply to requests for comment.)

Note Seitz-Wald's Alinsky tactics. He doesn't even bother to try to establish that anything I say or do is wrong, aside from a sideswipe at the "so-called" ground zero mosque. Instead, he takes for granted that his liberal readers will think of me as someone to be shunned, and think something is wrong with Hasner for being associated with me. This is a despicable but common tactic on the left: demonize someone relentlessly, and then criticize other people on the right for having anything to do with him or her. And the right, full of craven cowards, all too often goes along, eagerly allowing the left to set the agenda and dictate with whom it can and cannot associate.

As the Florida Independent noted in September of last year, Hasner has been involved in a “long-time crusade against the supposed threat of Sharia in the U.S.” In 2009, he appeared on a panel in D.C. with Geller and Frank Gaffney, the man behind Bachmann’s with hunt, according to a press release unearthed by the liberal research group American Bridge. Robert Spencer, another key figure in the Islamophobia cottage industry, called Hasner a “fearless truth teller” (here’s a photo them posing together via Spencer’s blog, Jihad Watch).

Before that, Hasner invited notorious Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders to Florida. “When I invited Geert Wilders to join me for a Free Speech conference in Palm Beach County, not only did the hotel cancel its plans to have him come in, but I was the one who was asked by the Hamas front group, the Council on Arab-Islamic Relations, to resign from the Florida House of Representatives, because I was an Islamophobe and a hater,” he said in the Fort Lauderdale speech. Wilders has made crusading against Islam his top priority.  He was under house arrest for hate speech in Holland and is barred from visiting several countries.

Seitz-Wald doesn't tell you that Wilders was acquitted of the spurious and politically motivated "hate speech" charges, or that he stands for a free society, as do I. He knows his lemming readers will hate who he tells them to hate, and he doesn't have to give them reasons. And if Wilders is barred from visiting several countries, it is because the politically correct elites in those countries are listening to their Alex Seitz-Walds, bowing to Islamic supremacists and turning against freedom fighters. This is their shame, not their glory.

When Hasner caught flak for the invitation, he was unperturbed. “These are the same people who have been attacking me all session. This isn’t about being anti-Islam, this is all about the right to free speech and they are trying to stifle it,” he casually told the St. Petersburg Times in April 2009. Wilders personally thanked Hasner in his speech, saying, “We need strong leaders like we have here today, Allen West and Adam Hasner. We need strong men like that.”

Indeed we do, and Alex Seitz-Wald shows why with every new paragraph.

Within just a few days of the Wilders speech, it was an event that Hasner did not attend that raised eyebrows. He apparently boycotted an imam’s opening prayers at the state Legislature. The Palm Beach Post reported at the time:

As usual, the Florida House opened session today with a prayer. But for the first time this year (and possibly the first time ever), that prayer was led by an imam, Qasim Ahmed, from the Islamic Learning Institute in Tampa. The prayer was videotaped by Ahmed Bedier, United Voices of  America director, who remarked on the absence of House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, R-Boca Raton. Bedier said he was videotaping the “historic” moment. “We did notice Hasner’s empty chair. That’s definitely noticed,” Bedier said… Hasner said he wasn’t on the floor this morning for personal reasons and noted the iman was in the House at the invitation of Rep. Jim Waldman, D-Coconut Creek. “It’s Jim Waldman’s right as a member to invite whomever he wants,” Hasner said.

Seitz-Wald doesn't mention, not surprisingly, that Qasim Ahmed appears to be a polygamist -- and that polygamy is illegal in the United States. Adam Hasner had good reason not to want to appear with him. But for Alex Seitz-Wald, the only motive could be "bigotry," not a desire not to appear to be validating people who flout the law.