Due for an oil change
Tuesday night I spoke at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. It was a great evening. The Conservative Union students who invited me were outstandingly well organized, and had publicized the event efficiently; the event was attended by an overflow crowd, standing all around the doorway and in the aisles; some of the usual hostile questions were asked but there was none of the atmosphere of thuggish intimidation that was in the air at places such as East Tennessee State University and to a lesser degree elsewhere.
There was also no sign of any orchestrated propaganda campaign against the event, as there was in East Tennessee and again to a lesser extent elsewhere. I was told that one Iranian professor spoke disparagingly of me in his class the afternoon before the event, and he did come to the talk, but he left without asking a question. (Here again I wonder: why not? You would think it would be easy to refute what I say, if what CAIR and the MSA etc. say about me were true.)
One hint of the disinformation fog came from a girl who said that she had heard rumors that I was a Catholic and had a secret religious agenda — I readily admitted that I’m a Catholic, and asked her whether she thought it was an efficient way for me to pursue a secret religious agenda by speaking in defense of the non-establishment of religion (as I had during my talk) and not engaging in anything even close to proselytizing. But otherwise the question period was calm and maybe even illuminating. A defender of CAIR, a lone questioner trying to assert — in the teeth of the evidence — that I had claimed that all Muslims were pursuing jihad against the West, but all in all a pleasant and mutually respectful exchange.
Anyway, after that I got back into the Jihad Watch company car, our beautiful Maxwell Roadster, and hurried back to the offices just in time to repack my suitcase — I’m heading down this morning in the Maxwell to the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s Restoration Weekend. Speakers there will include notable anti-jihadists such as Caroline Glick, Yaron Brook, Melanie Phillips, Daniel Pipes, and Frank Gaffney, and I will be speaking as well.
Then next week I’m back in the Maxwell again, heading to the great cities of the Great Satan, Washington and New York, for activities related to the official release of my new book Stealth Jihad. Soon after that it’s off to Chicago and then in mid-December to the Facing Jihad summit in Jerusalem. I am not sure how I’m going to get the Maxwell over to Jerusalem. Have they finished the bridge yet?
UPDATE: I won’t have to worry about the bridge just yet, as the Jerusalem conference has been postponed until after the Israeli elections.