A few days ago I wrote here about how Jihad Watch had won — overwhelmingly — a vote for the “People’s Choice Blog Award,” to be awarded at CPAC. You can see the vote here. However, as I explained in my initial post, I noticed that some of what was promised to the winner had not been delivered: the TeaParty.net voting site says that “the winner will get special linkage at the top of our website,” but as you can see, there is no such “special linkage.”
So I contacted John Hawkins of Right Wing News, who had initially told me I was nominated for this award, and he told me that the Tea Party people and others whom he had been asked not to name had told him to tell me that during the award ceremony I must not criticize Grover Norquist or Suhail Khan. I was surprised, as I hadn’t intended to do any such thing anyway, but the request itself impressed upon me how dangerous their links to Islamic supremacists really were, as well as their mad attempt to quash all criticism and discussion of those links, so I told John I couldn’t agree to that. He said he would go back to his higher-ups and explain that to them and let me know what they said, and at the end of the call it was quite clear that my agreeing not to talk about Norquist and Khan was a condition of receiving the award.
When I didn’t hear back from him as promised, I figured that that condition was not going to be removed, and so after more than a day had passed I wrote this post, refraining from mentioning John Hawkins by name as a courtesy to him. It was picked up in a few places, and now Hawkins is in full damage-control mode, apparently contacting every site that picked up the story and offering a highly disingenuous version of what happened, accusing me of lying and fabricating the whole controversy.
The ironic thing is that I could have lied to Hawkins, but didn’t. One obvious response to his saying that I could get the award as long as I didn’t criticize Norquist and Khan would have been to say, “Sure, John, no worries, I won’t do that,” and then at the awards ceremony itself say, “I told John Hawkins that I wouldn’t do this, but it is just too important a matter for me to keep silent, and so I’m sorry, John, but here are the facts about Grover Norquist’s ties to Islamic supremacists and the dangers of his influence over CPAC and the conservative movement…” But I just don’t operate that way, and also had too much respect for John Hawkins to do that. And in response, he is now accusing me of lying all over the Internet. You know the old saying: no good deed goes unpunished.
Here is what Hawkins wrote at the American Thinker:
I am the one who talked to Robert Spencer. I told him that I didn’t care what he said about the ACU to bloggers, in interviews outside the door, on radio row or anywhere else at CPAC, but I’ve known Robert for years and I asked him as a personal favor not to rant about his feud with the ACU when he received his award.
He said he couldn’t do that. If he got his award, he absolutely had to trash the ACU after he received it.
That was basically the end of the conversation because there was just nothing left to say after that.
But, it’s extremely important to note that at no point did I tell him not to come or say he wouldn’t be allowed in the room. So, any suggestion that he was banned from attending is absolutely, unconditionally not true. In fact, my assumption was that he would be there to get his award until I saw that post on his website, which was extremely disappointing.
Robert did win the award, I personally ordered his plaque today and per an email I received earlier, I believe someone will be there to pick his award up for him at the ceremony.
Ultimately, I thought the blogger awards should be about bloggers being recognized for the great work they’re doing. Robert apparently thought it should be about the problem he has with the ACU. I’m very sorry he feels that way and I’m extremely disappointed that he went so far as to falsely claim that he was barred from getting his award to drum up PR for himself.
And at the Right Scoop he writes even more strongly:
I”m John Hawkins and I”m the one who spoke to Robert on the phone.
Just to give you some background, I helped Pamela get the room she used at CPAC last year. TheTeaParty.net, the group that’s co-sponsoring the blogger awards this year, provided that space. Pamela and Robert were both at the blogger award ceremony last year and Pamela won an award. I”ve also interviewed both Robert and Pamela at http://www.rightwingnews.com, linked them from my blog and I considered Pamela a friend and Robert a friendly acquaintance before this happened.
I asked Robert, as a personal favor, to just pick up his award without ranting about the ACU. Some people may disagree, but I don’t think asking someone not to pull a Kanye West at an award ceremony is a big imposition. The awards are supposed to be about awarding unappreciated bloggers for the good work they”re doing, not about Robert Spencer airing his personal grievances with the ACU. When Robert refused to agree to that, it was the end of the conversation because there was nothing else to say. Let me note that I absolutely, unconditionally did not tell him that he was “barred from receiving his award.” In fact, I thought he was going to be at the ceremony until his post claiming he was “barred from receiving his award” came out.
Additionally, Robert did win the award, I personally had the plaque made for him and as late as yesterday he was even going to have someone receive it on his behalf, although I”ve been told he changed his mind about that. Either way, he will have a plaque and I promise to put up a picture of it when the pictures of the award ceremony come out if he doesn’t want to have someone pick it up for him.
Last but not least, if anybody has a problem with this, they can feel free to blame me for it. I”m the one who talked to Robert Spencer and I”m the one who’s saying that I think demanding the right to throw a tantrum as a condition of accepting an award is unacceptable. All I can say beyond that is that I hope lying to get his 5 minutes of PR was worth burning people who”ve been supportive of him, because he is dead to me.
Note that in neither of his responses does he address the central question and say that I can receive the award and say anything I like. Clearly the prohibition on my talking about Norquist and Khan is still in place and very much real. Anyway, I wrote this response to the Right Scoop, which published it, and sent it also to the American Thinker:
John Hawkins” account below is highly tendentious to the point of being outright dishonest.
John represents his telling me not to speak about Norquist and Khan’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic supremacists as a “personal favor” he was asking of me, not to “rant” and “throw a tantrum.” The ties that Norquist and Khan have to islamic supremacists are not a matter of a rant or tantrum, but a serious issue that is causing immense damage to the conservative movement and the Republican Party”s ability to oppose Barack Obama’s consistent enabling of Islamic supremacism domestically and internationally. It needs to be raised, yet as I told John when we spoke, I had no intention of doing so at the awards ceremony until he conveyed to me the order not to do so “” which order only impressed upon me anew the need to call attention to this problem.
Also, John never represented this to me as a “personal favor.” He stressed to me repeatedly that he was conveying an order from higher ups which he told me he was further ordered not to name to me. And while he did make clear that I was welcome to come and accept the award, he also made it quite clear that I was not to say anything about Norquist and Khan (the ACU was actually never discussed), and that one was conditional on the other.
I ask in the interests of fairness and accuracy that if you print his highly misleading and disingenuous remarks below, that you also print these.
And there is more. Let’s take Hawkins’ claims one by one:
I am the one who talked to Robert Spencer. I told him that I didn’t care what he said about the ACU to bloggers, in interviews outside the door, on radio row or anywhere else at CPAC, but I’ve known Robert for years and I asked him as a personal favor not to rant about his feud with the ACU when he received his award.
Actually we never discussed the ACU. We discussed Norquist and Khan, whom he is careful not to mention in these messages. He never said anything about not caring what I said in interviews, or on radio row, etc. He never asked me not to speak about them as a personal favor, but repeatedly conveyed the prohibition on my saying anything about Norquist and Khan as coming from higher ups whom he was not at liberty to name. And I do not have a “feud with the ACU.” I am one of the people who has raised questions about Norquist’s and Khan’s unsavory ties to Islamic supremacists. For that, as Suhail Khan has boasted to me, I am banned from speaking at CPAC.
He said he couldn’t do that. If he got his award, he absolutely had to trash the ACU after he received it.
Remember: this wouldn’t have come up at all if he had not raised it, at the behest of his employers. I didn’t call John and tell him I could only receive the award if I spoke about Norquist and Khan — he brought them up.
That was basically the end of the conversation because there was just nothing left to say after that.
Actually he said he would talk to his superiors and get back to me, but he never did. Apparently he can’t acknowledge that now because they seem to have required him to take the hit for them by claiming that he did this all on his own initiative.
But, it’s extremely important to note that at no point did I tell him not to come or say he wouldn’t be allowed in the room.
Straw man. I never claimed that he told me not to come or said that I wouldn’t be allowed in the room.
Ultimately, I thought the blogger awards should be about bloggers being recognized for the great work they’re doing. Robert apparently thought it should be about the problem he has with the ACU. I’m very sorry he feels that way and I’m extremely disappointed that he went so far as to falsely claim that he was barred from getting his award to drum up PR for himself.
Again, remember: none of this would have happened if he hadn’t informed me that his bosses told him to tell me not to talk about Norquist and Khan. They raised the issue. I am a free speech activist — what else was I going to say in the face of a gag order but that I would defy it? And this business about doing this for PR — in this Hawkins is beginning to ape the Islamic supremacists and their enablers for whom he is carrying water, in making this an ad hominem attack rather than dealing with the issues at hand.
I am dead to him, eh? So also is his integrity.