The same AP story, posted at different times, identical except for different quotes from Ibrahim Hooper — different quotes that say the same thing, but the second one isn’t as harsh as the first one.
Allahpundit has the details at Hot Air.
Originally the story said this:
The Council on American-Islamic Relations thinks Hirsi Ali’s campaign amounts to slander and bigotry.
“We believe that contributes to a growing level of Muslim hatred in America,” the council’s communications director, Ibrahim Hooper, said in an interview Saturday. “It is unfortunate that she had to bring that kind of hate from Europe to the United States.”
This was changed to:
The Council on American-Islamic Relations thinks Hirsi Ali’s campaign amounts to slander and bigotry.
“We believe that she will bring an increase to the level of anti-Muslim bias in this country that we saw her bring to the situation in Europe,” the council’s communications director, Ibrahim Hooper, said in an interview Saturday. “Unfortunately her message is one of bigotry, not one of mutual understanding.”
Compare the two story links and you’ll see that the stories are otherwise identical.
Curious. I am not quite sure what to make of it. Allahpundit observes: “What we”re looking at here, I suspect (but obviously can’t prove), is Hooper having made the first comment during their interview, then gotten buyer’s remorse when he saw how shrill it looked in print. So he called up the AP hours after the fact and asked them to replace it with a more ‘nuanced’ version “” and the AP agreed to do so.” Is there another possible explanation? Could the author of this story, William C. Mann, have had some good reason of his own to replace the harsh quote with the softer one? I can’t think of one, but there may be one. Or is he simply happy to do CAIR’s bidding?