WND's Farah Applies Coulter's Islam Solution to Gays Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah concluded his Feb. 22 WorldNetDaily column -- spent ranting against the idea that gays could be conservatives -- this way:
Ann Coulter once famously suggested the best way for Americans to battle radical Islam is to convert them all to Christianity. I agree.
And the best way to win over homosexuals to conservative politics is to do the same.
Of course, that's not all Coulter said about Islam. The full quote, taken from Coulter's post-9/11 column, was that we should "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." To which she added: "And this is war."
Does Farah endorse the full application of Coulter's advice by invading homosexual strongholds -- bars, musicals, etc. -- and kill their leaders as part of converting gays to Christianity? He might want to elaborate.
However, the charge made by some (including myself) that the president is intent upon "destroying America" has invited ridicule, since the left and the press in particular typically paint all Obama detractors with a very wide brush. Logically, of course, it doesn't make any sense that a world leader of any political persuasion would intentionally destroy his country.
Well, this would depend upon what the meaning of the word "destroy" is.
If the meaning of "destroy" is turning America into a barren, smoldering, toxic moonscape from coast to coast, something out of "The Road Warrior" or "Resident Evil," then Obama almost certainly does not wish to destroy America. This paradigm of destruction would be dismissed by Americans as ludicrous – at least as far as someone wanting to bring it about intentionally.
But there are other kinds of destruction. A family can be destroyed without its members being slaughtered and their house burned down. Varying brands of calamity and/or dysfunction have served to consign family units to a state of non-being. It happens all the time. Similarly, nations throughout history have been destroyed without the wholesale annihilation of their people, their farms being burned and their cities razed to the ground.
We all know where the "mullah in chief," President Barack Hussein Obama, stands on Israel and the Middle East – four square with the previous "idiot in chief," former President Jimmy Carter. Like Carter, who believes in the "innocence of strangers" like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah – terror groups that in Jimmy's senile anti-Semitic mind he thinks are fellow "democrats" – Obama's pro-Muslim inclinations lead him to ignore the freedom movement in Iran, which is largely secular, and work against the Jewish state, Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East.
Indeed, while quick to push Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak out the door and open it up for the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, made scant mention of the demonstrations in Iran this week, saying only that they wished the mullahs – who are executing the opposition at a rate of one every nine hours – would honor universal concepts of freedom of speech. Nothing was said about so-called "regime change," which they were quick to advocate with Egypt. And when, in the last days, the neo-Nazi Islamic Iranian regime expressed its intention to send warships into the Suez Canal zone at Israel's doorstep – which is more than even a provocation, but a virtual act of war – what did Obama and Ms. Hillary say about that? Nada, rien, zero, nothing! And, to top it all off, there is the administration's desire, for the first time in U.S. history, to soon support a new but retooled United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements on its West Bank – land God gave to the Jewish people and which they reclaimed at the cost of Hebrew blood in the 1967 war.
[...]
Shame on you, Republicans! You may not be pro-Islam like the mullah in chief, but, with your inaction, you are certainly furthering his anti-Judeo-Christian designs and endangering Israel, the United States and the entire Western world in the process.
If ever you needed an illustration of the idiocy, naïveté and downright selfishness of too many Americans, these spreading disruptions are perfect. You have supposedly educated people who threaten to "tear it all down" because they can't get what they want when they want it.
Of course, that there's no money to fund their expectations doesn't matter to them. Their rhetoric is illustrative of Marxist ideology in play, and it all should make one man particularly happy.
That man is Barack Obama, the man who is the president of the United States. It's too bad that he's out of his league in that job and totally removed from the havoc he's instigated, although I don't for a minute believe he isn't fully aware of the damage he has, and is, causing.
[...]
While the Middle East spins into chaos, our allies are deserted, our economy teeters on the rocks of bankruptcy, the dollar fragile and the threat of domestic violence over economic issues is too real, Barack Obama continues like the Wizard of Oz – existing behind the curtain of lies, pretending all is well with the world.
WND's Kupelian to Take Part In Anti-Gay Conference Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Feb. 20 WorldNetDaily article reports that WND managing editor David Kupelian will be taking part in the upcoming "Truth Academy" held by the Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (which WND identifies only as "Americans for Truth") and Mission America.
AFTAH and Mission America are two of the more rabidly anti-gay groups out there. AFTAH chief Peter LaBarbera, for example, approvingly quoted Matt Barber -- another conference participant -- describing homosexuality as "one man violently cramming his penis into another man’s lower intestine and calling it 'love.'" And Mission America leader Linda Harvey blames gays for suicides among gay youths because they were under "almost continuous pressure to accept a lie."
Kupelian will not ostensibly be pushing an anti-gay agenda during his appearance there; his scheduled subjects to speak on are "Christian Persecution in America and the Role of the Left" and "Propaganda or Journalism? The Role of the Media in Undermining Christianity." But he is hanging out with some of the more vicious anti-gay activists, and WND has been a longtime home for anti-gay attacks, so he is clearly down with that agenda.
Newsmax Touts Biased Poll On Wis. Controversy Topic: Newsmax
A Feb. 21 Newsmax article is a actually a press release from Rasmussen Reports about its latest poll, which found that "48% of Likely U.S. Voters agree more with the Republican governor" in Wisconsin "in his dispute with union workers," while 38 percent "agree more with the unionized public employees.
Since all Newsmax did is copy-and-paste the Rasmussen press release -- though it's not labeled as such -- there's no critical analysis of it.
But as Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com reports, the Rasmussen poll introduces bias into the poll by asking, "Should teachers, firemen and policemen be allowed to go on strike?" In fact, police and fire services are specifically exempted from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's attempted restrictions on public sector unions. Thus Silver writes, the question is "a talking point posed as a question."
Another question in the Rasmussen poll asking whether "the average public employee in your state" earns more or less than "the average private sector worker in your state" is a "pop quiz" that doesn't belong in a poll, Silver writes. In fact, he notes, one analysis found that state employees typically earn slightly less than comparable employees in the private sector.
Ellis Washington Pegs the Silly Meter Topic: WorldNetDaily
Ellis Washington reminds us yet again of just what a silly and irrelevant man he is in his Feb. 19 WorldNetDaily column.
He starts off by referencing "the progressive revolution in the 1880s" and notes the philosophers and ideas allegedly tied to them, like "Social Darwinism, natural selection, survival of the fittest." The first and third are essentially the same thing, and "natural selection" is a demonstrated mechanism of evolution and accepted scientific theory -- and not linked to the other two, as what has become known as "social Darwinism" had been around well before Darwin.
Washington then added:
The early 20th century witnessed the classical age of Progressivism with books like Lenin's "The State and Revolution" (1917), Sanger's "The Pivot of Civilization" (1922), Hitler's "Mein Kampf" (1925), Freud's "The Future of an Illusion" (1927), Kinsey's "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" (1948) and Betty Friedan's classic, "The Feminine Mystique" (1948), among many others. The common objective in these diabolical books is promoting the ideals of the progressive revolution. Whether it is the end justifies the means, for the greater good, survival of the fittest, God is dead, a New World Order, first brown, then red, "is" (legality) over "ought"(morality) – all end in death for the individual and genocide for most of society.
Really? "Mein Kampf" is a progressive tract? It's just the same as "The Feminine Mystique"? Kinsey's compilation of research was all about "promoting the ideals of the progressive revolution"?
This is why no thinking person takes Washington seriously. Nobody, that is, except WorldNetDaily, which inexplicably continues to publish him every week.
NewsBusters Tries, Fails To Liken Dem Meeting to Koch Gathering Topic: NewsBusters
Julia A. Seymour has no sense of proportion.
In a Feb. 20 NewsBusters post, Seymour complains that an upcoming gathering by Democratic operatives "has gotten little attention or criticism, yet when conservatives gather at the semiannual Koch conference the left mounts elaborate protests."
The Politico item Seymour quotes about the Democratic gathering noted that "Participants include Obama campaign pollsters Joel Benenson and Paul Harstad, the 2010 executive directors of the DSCC, DCCC, and DGA, Organizing for America deputy director Jeremy Bird, SEIU political director Jon Youngdahl, and current DSCC executive director Guy Cecil." It is also not funded by billionaire financiers.
By contrast, the Koch Brothers-funded gatherings are much larger and include a large array of conservative figures. From a New York Times article discussing a previous Koch gathering in Aspen, Colo.:
The participants in Aspen dined under the stars at the top of the gondola run on Aspen Mountain, and listened to Glenn Beck of Fox News in a session titled, “Is America on the Road to Serfdom?” (The title refers to a classic of Austrian economic thought that informs libertarian ideology, popularized by Mr. Beck on his show.)The participants included some of the nation’s wealthiest families and biggest names in finance: private equity and hedge fund executives like John Childs, Cliff Asness, Steve Schwarzman and Ken Griffin; Phil Anschutz, the entertainment and media mogul ranked by Forbes as the 34th-richest person in the country; Rich DeVos, the co-founder of Amway; Steve Bechtel of the giant construction firm; and Kenneth Langone of Home Depot.
The group also included longtime Republican donors and officials, including Foster Friess, Fred Malek and former Attorney General Edwin Meese III.
Participants listened to presentations from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as people who played leading roles in John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008, like Nancy Pfotenhauer and Annie Dickerson, who also runs a foundation for Paul Singer, a hedge fund executive who like the Kochs is active in promoting libertarian causes.
To encourage new participants, Mr. Koch offers to waive the $1,500 registration fee. And he notes that previous guests have included Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court, Gov. Haley Barbour and Gov. Bobby Jindal, Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, and Representatives Mike Pence, Tom Price and Paul D. Ryan.
Another thing Seymour might want to have mentioned: Her employer, the Media Research Center, has taken money from Koch interests, including the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation.
Being An 'Eligibility Activist' = Sending Money to WND Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Feb. 20 WorldNetDaily article details how WND's Joseph Farah has "devised a 10-point program for eligibility activism." Of those 10, eight require sending money to Farah and WND.
Farah wants you to donate to his birther billboard campaign, buy his factually flawed birther video, stock up on birther signs, T-shirts, postcards and bumper stickers, "Donate any amount to the investigative reporting fund to find out the truth about Barack Obama," and buy the new book by Jerome Corsi, the same guy who also apparently believes that Obama is having gay sex.
Of the remaining two steps, one gives you the option of sending money to WND by buying a "paperback version" of WND's downloadable "Obama eligibility primer" -- which is littered with factual errors too. The final, non-costly item is signing petitions (which, of course, are hosted by WND).
Media Matters' Jamison Foser has computed that being the "eligibility activist" Farah wants you to be means sending Farah and WND a minimum of $96.83.
Need any more evidence that Farah is in this for the money? You just got it.
NewsBusters Mostly Quiet About Conservatives Insulting Lara Logan Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters got a lot of mileage out of denouncing Nir Rosen -- whom managing editor Matthew Sheffield described as "one of the more rabidly left-wing foreign policy commentators out there" -- for making offensive remarks regarding the attack on CBS' Lara Logan by a mob, which ultimately led him toresign his position as a fellow at the NYU School of Law's Center on Law and Security:
A post by Sheffield chortling that Rosen "has finally gotten some just desserts."
Matthew Balan repeating Rosen's claim that he didn't know Logan had been sexually assaulted before he made his remarks.
Balan's complaint that ABC's Ashleigh Banfield "punted" on Rosen by saying she was "certainly not going to cast aspersions" on him.
What you won't see at NewsBusters is little definitive condemnation -- let alone barely any mention -- of conservative commentators who made similarly offensive remarks about Rosen.
A Feb. 17 post by Noel Sheppard did call conservative Debbie Schlussel's comments about Logan "disgraceful" -- but only after complaining that MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell noted Schussel's remark and not Rosen's.
Sheppard followed up in a Feb. 20 post, complaining that Howard Kurtz identified Schlussel as a conservative but didn't identify Rosen as a liberal.
Completely unmentioned by NewsBusters, however, were remarks made by prominent conservative blogger Jim Hoft, who blamed Logan for her assault, claiming that "Her liberal belief system almost got her killed." Then again, NewsBusters couldn't be bothered to be insulted when Hoft portrayed Rahm Emanuel as a "Kapo" -- an insulting reference to Jews who collaborated with Nazis -- after Sheppard denounced one commenter using the same word to describe tea party members.
Newsmax Keeps Up Fossella Rehabilitation Project Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax, it seems, is still pluggingaway at its attempt to rehabilitate former Rep. Vito Fossella.
A Feb. 16 Newsmax article by Jim Meyers and Ashley Martella features an interview with Fossella, whom they described only as having "served 12 years in the House as the only Republican congressman from New York City, leaving office in 2009."
What Meyers and Martella don't tell you about Fossella: He left office in disgrace after a DUI arrest led to the revelation that Fossella had a mistress in Washington and fathered a child with her. It was only after that became public that Fossella decided not to seek re-election.
A Feb. 18 NewsBusters post by Brent Baker on the ublic worker protests in Wisconsin claimed that "Governor Scott Walker is merely asking the coddled workers for a slight increase, from six to twelve percent, in the portion of the generous health coverage they must pay."
A 100 percent increase in the workers' health care contribution -- which results in an effective 7 percent pay cut for these workers, which Baker later notes but doesn't challenge -- is "slight"? Perhaps Baker makes so much of that Scaife-Koch money that he wouldn't miss 7 percent of it.
Baker also offered no evidence to support his claim that the Wisconsin state workers are "coddled"; perhaps it's just a right-wing axiom that all public sector workers, by definition, are "coddled."
WND Cherry-Picks Media Matters To Fluff Joel Richardson Topic: WorldNetDaily
You thought Aaron Klein was an expertcherry-picker of misleading information? His fellow WorldNetDaily employees are no slouch either.
A Feb. 17 WND article by Bob Unruh is a transparent attempt to cash in on Joel Richardson's appearance on Glenn Beck's TV show by promoting Richardson's WND-published book "The Islamic Antichrist." As part of his promotion of Richardson, Unruh writes:
Media Matters for America launched an immediate response, called, "Who is Joel Richardson, Beck's End Times Prophet?"
It noted that Beck's website has published writings by Richardson, and the author also appears in a new video by Beck that talks about the threat of a nuclear Iran to the U.S. and Israel.
In fact, the Media Matters article in question (which we co-authored) is a compilation of Richardson's most outrageous statements, many of which were published by WND. The article's noting of Richardson's ties to Beck are, in context, evidence of how much Beck has tied himself to Richardson's loony views about Obama and Islam.
Talk about a selective reading. Is this kind of deceitful cherry-picking something that WND writers take special training to do?
P.S. Of course, like Klein, Unruh didn't link to the Media Matters item he quotes from, lest his extreme cherry-picking be exposed.
Newsmax Takes Sides on Lawsuit Against Lawyer, Hides Its Own Involvement Topic: Newsmax
A Feb. 15 Newsmax article by David Patten takes a couple stabs at balance in reporting on legal actions against the lawyer for Rifqa Bary, the teen who ran away from home claiming that her Muslim parents planned to kill her for converting to Christianity, but it's clear where Patten's sympathy lies, starting with the headline: "Rifqa Barry [sic] Attorney Stemberger Fights $10 Million Suit for Defending Christian Rights."
Well, no. John Stemberger faces the lawsuit for allegedly defaming the lawyer for Bary's parents, Omar Tarazi, by claiming that he was mosque that had ties to terrorists and that he was being paid by the Council on American-Islamic Relations to represent the parents.But Patten tried to downplay the claim, describing it as stemming "from the last 30 seconds of an appearance [Stemberger] made on Fox & Friends" and playing up Stemberger's claims that the remarks were "fairly harmless" and that Tarazi is "paraphrasing and he’s interpreting, instead of quoting me."
Patten also uncritically describes Stemberger as "a well-respected Orlando attorney," adding, "Although he never sought nor received compensation for the case, its aftermath threatens to have devastating consequences for him, and possibly for his professional livelihood." Patten includes two boldface links to Stemberger's defense fund.
Further, Patten curiously leaves Stemberger's co-defendant in the defamation lawsuit unnamed, identifying the person only as a "blogger." In fact, that "blogger" is former Newsmax columnist Pamela Geller (identified in the lawsuit as Pamela Oshry, the name she went by before a recent divorce), who appears to have written some actionable statements about Tarazi in her work for Newsmax:
In a March 1, 2010, column, Geller asserted that Tarazi was a "attorney chosen by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)."
On March 11, Geller called Tarazi "her parents’ aggressive and manipulative attorney" and again claimed that he "was chosen for the Barys by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group under suspicion of funding the terrorist group Hamas."
You'd think Patten would have known that. Either he's too dumb to do basic research, or he's deliberately hiding this from his readers, for reasons known only to him.
Patten also notes that Stemberger also faces disciplinary action from the Florida Bar for his actions in the Bary case, but he offers few details beyond an allegation that "Stemberger presented himself as Bary’s attorney when he no longer represented her," a charge that, of course, Patten gave Stemberger the opportunity to deny. The Orlando Sentinel, meanwhile, serves up much more detail:
According to a complaint mailed to the Florida Supreme Court on Monday, that action would have ended Stemberger's representation of Bary.
But Stemberger went on Fox News on four separate occasions and said or implied during the ongoing dependency case in Ohio that he remained Bary's attorney, the complaint said.
Stemberger also accused Omar Tarazi, the attorney for Bary's parents, of being paid by terrorist-associated organizations.
At the time, Tarazi was under a gag order in the Ohio case and couldn't refute the accusations, the Bar's complaint said.
Tarazi, in his complaint to The Florida Bar, accused Stemberger of making false and damaging statements about him.
Tarazi also filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit against Stemberger in Ohio federal court.
The Bar's complaint said Stemberger posted confidential documents on his law firm's website.
According to the complaint, Stemberger also posted a letter to the editor, which appeared in the Orlando Sentinel, on his website.
The description that appeared in the Sentinel referred to Stemberger as an attorney who represented the teen. But the complaint said Stemberger titled the editorial on his site as "attorney for" Bary.
"After Mr. Tarazi filed a complaint with the bar, [Stemberger] changed the title to state he was the former attorney for the minor child," the document said.
Stemberger violated several Bar rules, the complaint said, including improperly revealing information about a former client. The Florida Bar's complaint asks the state Supreme Court to be "appropriately disciplined."
But since the point of Patten's article was to serve as a free ad for Stemberger's defense fund -- as evidenced by the boldface links to it in his article -- Newsmax really doesn't want you to know the full truth.
Corsi Mines The Darkest Corners Of Obama Derangement Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jerome Corsi unleashes a fit of high-grade Obama derangement in a Feb. 17 WorldNetDaily column that purports to be a review of WND columnist Jack Cashill's new WND-published book "Deconstucting Obama."
Unsurprisingly, Corsi loves Cashill's book, which he claims "has established a solid case that Weather Underground radical bomber Bill Ayers, not Barack Obama, is the author of the president's autobiography, 'Dreams from My Father.'" He goes on to declare what the "truth" is that "Ayers tries to mask with the soaring prose of 'Dreams from My Father'":
Obama is a relatively inexperienced Chicago-style corrupt political hack who was trained by communists, including his mentor Frank Marshall Davis;
in his formative years, Obama read angry black revolutionary authors and proceeded through two colleges with mediocre grades at best, submerged in a haze of marijuana smoke peppered by cocaine use; and
Obama, with the active promotion of an uncritical mainstream media, emerged to be president of the United States, even though he cannot yet seem to locate his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate.
From there, Corsi shifts into full-blown Obama derangement:
Cashill's book is required reading for anyone who wants to understand how far myth-making propagandists such as Obama advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe have gone to advance principles of political propaganda first developed by Edward Bernays into techniques capable of transforming relatively pedestrian political hacks into the legendary stuff of rap-lyric rhapsodized "Yes, we can" chimeras.
[...]
As Cashill argues convincingly, beyond the Obama myth-making there is a disappointing Obama reality.
Barack Hussein Obama (or is it Barry Soetoro?) was selected by Ayers, Axelrod and Plouffe to preside over a post-modern era in which the United States slides into second place behind China.
Corsi also goes on a weird digression of gay-bashing intertwined with his hatred of Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright:
Ayers, Axelrod and Plouffe would go to any length, including lying, to hide the reality that Black Liberation Theology is a Marxist-derived revolutionary religion predicated on racist prejudices.
The reader could never know that Rev. Wright and Trinity United Church of Christ championed Muslims like Louis Farrakhan and welcomed into its ranks homosexuals such as choirmaster David Young.
Equally toxic was the mystery that Young was one of three Trinity United Church openly professed homosexuals brutally killed in yet-unsolved murders that occurred within a 40-day time span between November and December 2007, as Obama's handlers were preparing to take his presidential campaign to the national stage.
What Corsi appears to be alluding to is the fringe claim promoted by the likes of the discredited Wayne Madsen that Obama had an affair with Young -- echoing the claims made by the discredited Larry Sinclair. If you'll recall, WND wallowed in Sinclair's claim, happily reporting it while making no effort to verify it, eventually abandoning it when it wouldn't gain traction (that and the fact that Sinclair has proven to be utterly untrustworthy).
Corsi apparently believe this fringe claim, even though he won't come right out and say it. That makes Corsi a gutless swine. If he truly believes Obama has been operating on the down-low, he should say so instead of dropping dark, homophobic hints.
Of course, Corsi has been more than willing to demonstrate his desperateness to take down Obama by any means necessary, including tellinglies and peddling bogus documents. Why wouldn't he treat each and every Obama smear at face value?
WorldNetDaily author and occasionaly columnist Joel Richardson was on Glenn Beck's Fox News show tonight talking about his favorite subject -- why the Muslim Mahdi is the Antichrist. We're pretty sure Richardson didn't want to talk about why he thinks Islam is the "primary vehicle" of Satan or what President Obama and the Antichrist have in common (as he wrote in a WND column).
We';ve compiled Richardson's greatest hits over at Media Matters.
WND's Klein Cherry-Picks Another Think Tank Report Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein and his "Manchurian Presdident" co-author and researcher, Brenda J. Elliott, are two of the most shamelessly dishonest reporters ever.
Just a week after deliberately cherry-picking a report issued by a George Soros-funded think tank to falsely distort its conclusions and recommendations, Klein and Elliott do it again. From a Feb. 15 WND article by Klein, with "research" by Elliott:
An international "crisis management" group led by billionaire George Soros long has petitioned for the Algerian government to cease "excessive" military activities against al-Qaida-linked groups and to allow organizations seeking to create an Islamic state to participate in the Algerian government.
The organization, the International Crisis Group, also is tied strongly to the Egyptian opposition movement whose protests led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
[...]
In a July 2004 ICG report obtained by WND, the ICG calls on the Algerian government to curb military action against al-Qaida-affiliated organizations, particularly the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, GSPC, which, like the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, aims to establish an Islamic state within Algeria, and an armed Islamic terrorist group known as Houmat Daawa Salafia, or HDS.
Soros' ICG names the two Islamic groups in its recommendations to the Algerian government.
"Give top priority to ending the remaining armed movements, mainly the GSPC and HDS, through a political, security, legal and diplomatic strategy," states the ICG report.
"Avoid excessive reliance on military means and do not allow these movements' purported links to al-Qaida to rule out a negotiated end to their campaigns," continued the ICG's recommendation to the Algerian government.
As before, Klein refuses to link to the ICG report in his article, even though it's easily avabilable. And as before, his apparent reason for that basic journalistic failure is because he's pulling statements out of context.
Klein didn't mention that the ICG report also stated that the main "Islamist" parties in Algeria have rejected violent fundamentalism:
While these persistent difficulties may suggest little real change over the last decade, Algerian Islamists have revised their outlook and discourse in important respects. Islamic political activism has abandoned its brief but intense flirtation with revolution and reverted to essentially reformist strategies. The Islamist parties now accept the nation-state and have either tacitly abandoned the ideal of an Islamic state or reconciled it with democratic principles. They no longer advocate fundamentalist positions on Islamic law and have begun to accept equality of the sexes, including women's right to work outside the home and participate in public life. These changes represent a partial recovery of the outlook of the "Islamic modernism" movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. True fundamentalism -- hostile to democracy and the national idea, resistant to innovative thinking, conservative on the status of women -- is today confined to the Salafiyya current from which Islamist parties now explicitly dissociate themselves.
The armed rebellion is now reduced to the Salafiyya's jihadi wing. Its initial scale owed much to the involvement of a variety of ideological currents, including movements derived from or at least partly inspired by Algeria's nationalist and populist traditions. But today only groups derived from the Salafi current remain active and they have no representation in the party-political sphere. As the armed movements' political and social bases have contracted, their connections with local "mafias" involved in illicit economic activities, notably smuggling, have become more pronounced. Links to al-Qaeda underline the narrowness of their domestic constituency and reliance on external sources of legitimation.
Abandonment of fundamentalism by mainstream Islamist parties means the two oppositions that structured party-politics in the early 1990s, polarising and paralysing debate -- Islamism versus secularism and Islamism versus the nation-state -- have been largely overcome. Inclusive, constructive debate on reform between the main political tendencies -- including Islamists -- should now be possible.
For good measure, Klein repeats his previous false distortion about the ICG's recommendation that "pave the way for the regularization of the Muslim Brothers' participation in political life" without mentioning that the ICG also recommended that the Muslim Brotherhood moderate some of its more extreme views as well.
This isn't just bad reporting -- it's dishonest reporting. But do we expect anything else from Klein and Elliott?
